


Bonded Consort

by Lomonaaeren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bonding, Consorts - Freeform, Courtship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 89,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Nineteen years ago, the Potters betrothed their firstborn child to the firstborn Malfoy child. Eighteen years ago, Voldemort was defeated for good. Seventeen years ago, the Potters changed the contract so that their secondborn child was substituted for their firstborn. Now, Draco Malfoy is trying to work out what happened.





	1. Refusal

**Author's Note:**

> As you can probably see from the summary, this is a massive AU, some of the background of which will be explained as the story goes on. The most important facts to know are that Voldemort was vanquished for good in 1981 and thus the Potters are still alive; Harry did not attend Hogwarts; and Harry and Draco have never met. This story should be between eight and eighteen parts long, and will update on Tuesdays.

****“She’s your betrothed. Make the most of it.”

Draco tilted his head towards his mother. He knew as well as she did that the whispered warning oughtn’t to have been necessary. Draco should have been across the room already, standing beside Dahlia Potter, admiring her dress robes and her rich red hair and the brown eyes that beamed up at him trustingly.

He would have been, if he could stomach it.

Instead, Draco turned away, accepted a drink from a floating tray carried by an invisible house-elf, and joined Blaise and Pansy in a corner. They both wore dress robes with matching lace at the cuffs, and Pansy wore Blaise’s bonding bracelet (silver with an obsidian dragon on it, very nice) on her left wrist. They smiled up to welcome him, not seeming to resent the fact he’d broken their whispered conversation up.

Draco resented it, for himself.

“Enjoying the party, Draco?”

“Ha-ha, Zabini,” Draco said, and swallowed most of his drink.

“But your parents have planned this for months, and your betrothed is here.” Pansy could sound innocent and far stupider than she really was, and Draco glared at her suspiciously before he replied.

“I had nothing to do with the planning. I had nothing to do with the betrothal. And _look_ at her.”

“I have been. I envy her those robes.”

“She’s pretty enough, if you like gingers,” Blaise volunteered. Since Draco had seen his head turned by the Weasleys’ youngest a few times before he got actually interested in Pansy, he only answered with a snort. Blaise persisted. “No, seriously, Draco, I’ve always wanted to know. Yes, of course she’s a Light witch and a Gryffindor and we must all scorn them for the good of our reputation in the Slytherin common room, but what’s _actually_ wrong with Potter?”

Draco paused, his fingers forming a ring around the stem of his wineglass. He tilted it back and forth, watching the colors swim in the drink. Blaise leaned forwards.

“I’ll try to explain it,” Draco said. His parents had certainly never wanted to know.

Pansy nodded in exaggerated fashion, which got her a scowl before Draco sighed and said, “She’s too immature.”

Pansy said, “Well, she _is_ only fifteen. But by the time she’s seventeen and you can marry, she’ll have come of age.”

“It has nothing to do with age,” Draco said harshly. This was the point he had known they wouldn’t understand. “It has—do you know she told me once what her worst memory was?”

“What was it? Almost falling from a broom?”

Draco greeted that with another snort. He might not approve of Potter, but she was graceful enough to be Gryffindor’s reserve Seeker. “She told me that she had an argument with her sister…”

“Yes? Arguments among family can get pretty savage,” said Blaise, who would know.

“They argued about ice cream.”

There was silence for a moment. Blaise and Pansy blinked at each other. Then Pansy said, “At least ice cream is a cheap taste?”

“She has no worse memory than that,” Draco said. “She told me she hasn’t ever been jealous of her sister, even though lots of people say Lilac is prettier than her. And she doesn’t have any conflicts with her parents. And she doesn’t ever get detention, not even from Professor Snape. And she’s looking forward to marrying me. She hasn’t ever had a crush on another bloke, or girl. She’s perfectly happy to live where I want to live and have as many children as I want to have. She’s never entertained a doubt about the betrothal contract.”

Blaise and Pansy again looked at each other. Than Pansy began to giggle. “So your problem is that she’s _too perfect_?”

“Too bland.”

That stopped her giggling, and from the thoughtful expressions that took over their faces, Draco thought he might have convinced them at last.

“I see,” Blaise said slowly. “What kind of music does she like?”

“The Weird Sisters—but not all their songs. Celestina Warbeck—but not much.”

“Food?”

“Oh, a lot of things!”

Blaise smiled. Draco liked to think it was because he’d got Potter’s tone exactly right. “What does she like to do?”

“Fly. Dance, but only if she has an absolutely willing partner and not someone her parents talked into doing it. She’s never ridden an Abraxan, but she’d like to try. Watch the Muggle telly, but not so much that she would object to giving it up if I didn’t want her to. She thinks most of their programs are silly anyway.”

Blaise, who had a secondary Muggle house without magic in it specifically so he could have a telly, looked offended. Pansy said, “So you think she’s making herself sound perfect for you whether or not she really is?”

“No one can possibly be _that_ free of opinions. Especially someone raised by James and Lily Potter.” Draco rolled his eyes a little. He didn’t much like the Potters, but they were formal allies of his family, and had been ever since James had promised a marriage contract if Father would help rescue Lily from the Death Eaters who had taken her in the first war. And he could respect them for saying what they thought.

Dahlia never said what she thought. She smiled at him and curtsied and seemed to have no hidden depths. Either she did and they might burst out horribly after marriage—in which case Draco knew he would have a miserable life—or she actually was as shallow as she appeared and Draco wouldn’t have a miserable life because he would die of boredom first.

“Maybe she thinks she has to be like that to attract you.”

“She’s _been_ like that since she was seven years old, Pansy,” Draco told her in exasperation. “And I’ve made it clear that I wanted to hear what she thought, not what she thought I wanted to hear. I’ve begged and pleaded for her opinion on different models of broom, and different activities, and Father’s politics, and _everything_. I should have found at least one place we disagreed! Instead, nothing.”

“I didn’t realize you’d told her that.” Pansy toyed with her bonding bracelet as she frowned. “That does make it seem more like she’s lying because she thinks you’ll hate her otherwise.”

Blaise shrugged. “Or she doesn’t have a thought in her head.”

“I have to have a spouse I can trust,” Draco finished. His parents didn’t always get along, and sometimes spent whole days in frigid silence, but they _always_ knew each other, and that meant they could trust that at some point the silence would turn back into words, and not angry ones. “I could never trust Potter. Maybe she is completely shallow, but it’s so unbelievable anyone could be _that_ way all the time, she could also be the best liar I’ve ever seen. It’s not like I could know unless I get her under Veritaserum.”

“Do it.”

“Unlike _some_ of us who have parents that flout convention,” said Pansy, with a small frown at Blaise, “Draco can’t do that any more than he can simply break the betrothal contract because he doesn’t like her. It would violate honor.”

“Wait, I thought…” Blaise stared at Draco in a way that said he was as appalled as he had been whenever Draco displayed less than impeccable table manners. “I thought your parents liked the Potters, or owed them a debt, or otherwise had reasons for encouraging you to pursue your betrothed. Are you saying it’s just a matter of _honor_?”

“Not _just_ ,” said Pansy and Draco at the same time. Pansy fell silent and made a little encouraging motion with her wrist, and Draco nodded tightly to her and focused on Blaise again. “The betrothal contact was made to honor a debt and create a mutually advantageous bargain.”

“Obviously.”

“But the contract is serious, in the way a life-debt is. If we didn’t want something binding and serious, we would have chosen something else—I mean, my parents would have, seeing as I was a few months old at the time. So the only way we can end the betrothal is if Potter turns out to be unsuitable, or if one of us finds a _more_ suitable candidate to substitute for it.”

“She sounds pretty bloody unsuitable to me.”

“But not liking each other isn’t enough,” Draco finished with a sigh. He pretended to ignore the way he could feel his mother glaring at him across the ballroom for not going over to spend time with his fiancée. “And she’s not going to prove herself unsuitable now, not if she hasn’t so far.”

“You still have two years.” Blaise tried to squeeze his shoulder.

“She’s either completely shallow and trying to be everything I want or an excellent actor,” Draco reminded him. “Why would she mess up now?”

“And you’re not going to find a better candidate, not when your parents already found one once,” said Pansy, with a nod.

Draco stared at her. “What? I wasn’t under a betrothal contract before the one with the Potters! They would never have broken it!”

“I didn’t mean—of course your family took no dishonor,” said Pansy, and twisted her bonding bracelet hard enough that Draco thought she was going to break it for a second. “I only meant that the Potters said you were originally going to marry their firstborn, and Dahlia is their _second-born_ , so.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Pansy?”

Draco made sure to keep his voice low. Dimness was settling into the ballroom as the hired musicians began to play and Father led Mother out for the first dance. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention.

“You didn’t _know_ your betrothal contract was originally for the Potters’ first child?”

“Dahlia _is_ the one I was always meant for!”

“No, she isn’t,” said Pansy. She was pressing back against Blaise now, who had an arm around her shoulders and was glaring at Draco for frightening her. Draco ignored that. “You remember they had a son? Harold, or something. His name started with that ‘Har’ sound. Born just a few months after you. And then the Dark Lord attacked them, and something happened.”

“He vanished,” Draco said tightly. Father had tried to pretend he was under Imperius in the war, but Draco knew better. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about much.

Pansy nodded. “And the next year, your contract was changed. I know Dahlia wasn’t born until two years later. You didn’t think it was _strange_ that your parents betrothed you to someone who didn’t turn seventeen the same year you did?”

Draco shook his head, dazed. “I just thought that my parents were holding out for a Potter daughter, not a son. A—wife, not a consort.” Consortships were much rarer now than they had been two generations ago, because not many wizards paired to wizards or witches paired to witches were powerful enough anymore to create a child from pure magic and pure desire. Or not enough in love, some people whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Pansy said in a small voice that let Draco know she really meant it. “My mother told me all this two years ago. I just thought you knew and didn’t want to talk about it. Something was wrong with Harold, or whatever his name is. You know because he didn’t go to Hogwarts, and the Potters hid him away for a while and then sent him abroad. They changed your contract to Dahlia.”

Draco stared at Potter again across the ballroom, watching the way she laughed and smiled as people talked to her. She never flirted, even when a handsome young Hufflepuff eased up and looked at her hopefully. She never said anything scandalous, or inappropriate, or _funny_. It was no wonder Mother approved of her so much.

“That’s one thing I could do,” Draco heard himself saying. “I could find this—Harold, and substitute his name for Potter’s. My parents could hardly object to me bonding someone they originally decided on.”

“I seem to know more pure-blood tradition than either of you, suddenly,” Blaise drawled. “There’s only one reason they would have decided their second child was for you, Draco. Especially a child not born until two years later.”

“What?” Draco demanded. He honestly couldn’t think of a reason for changing a betrothal contract like that. It wasn’t _done_.

“If it turned out he was a Squib.”

Draco hesitated. He might complain about Blaise and Pansy to himself, and envy their happiness, but when it came down to it, there weren’t two people he trusted more. That was one reason it had been such a blow to find out he didn’t, couldn’t, trust Dahlia Potter.

“My family would never have betrothed me to a Squib.”

“It’s not like they would _know_ until he was at least a few years old, Draco—”

“No.” Draco took a deep breath. “They would. One of my ancestors got a Squib consort pawned off on her, long ago. She invented a way to tell when a child was a Squib at any age, even right after birth. She was determined the Malfoy family would never be tricked into that kind of marriage or consortship again.”

And if it had sometimes been used for less savory purposes by his ancestors, on their own children…Draco wasn’t ready to discuss that. But it was one of those darknessness he had always had to live with, and which Potter didn’t have, as far as he could see.

“What?” Blaise hissed.

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that.” Draco shook his head. “My parents would never have accepted the contract for a Squib son. The _least_ they would have done is insist that the Potters wait and see if a second child have magic before they signed the contract at all. And much more likely, they would have arranged the marriage for me with some other family and had the Potters pay something else for the debt.”

Blaise looked deep in thought, frowning. “But there _is_ nothing else that could make someone change the wording like that.” He glanced at Pansy. “Did your mother tell you whether it was the Potters or the Malfoys that made the change in the contract? That at least might give us a hint.”

“I think it was the Potters.”

 _Even less sense._ James Potter wasn’t the sort to condemn a child to a loveless marriage, Draco was sure. He probably thought Dahlia loved Draco and that was just fine, and he couldn’t see past Draco’s mask of politeness to the indifference he felt—or maybe he assumed no one _could_ be indifferent to his lovely, Quidditch-playing daughter. Even after having been around his prospective in-laws for a good portion of his life, Draco couldn’t claim he always understood them.

But what about a two-year-old could have convinced James Potter that some unknown child in the future would be a better match?

Frowning deeply, Draco tapped his fingers on his wineglass and watched as Potter got led out by her Hufflepuff. She liked to dance, he supposed, and there was no reason to wait. Or—oh, no, wait, Mother was looking with total obviousness from him to Potter. She must have advised Potter to do this because she thought it would make Draco “jealous” and force him to intervene. Draco would have to, but only because honor demanded he not show how much he despised his betrothed.

Draco sighed and pushed off from the pillar he’d leaned against. “I have to go do the social,” he muttered to his friends. “But if you think of any reason it could have been changed, let me know.”

“Sure, Draco,” Pansy murmured. Blaise nodded, his eyes alight. He always did enjoy a good minor mystery.

Draco smoothly cut Potter apart from her Hufflepuff and danced with her for a few minutes, watching her smooth forehead and shining eyes. Nothing ever _troubled_ her. While Draco didn’t want a jealous betrothed, at least a spiteful glance or so in Pansy’s direction would have reassured him she did _have_ feelings.

“Enjoying yourself, Dahlia?” he did ask.

“Of _course_! What’s not to enjoy?” 

  
That was it, Draco decided abruptly as he spun Dahlia through the movements of a waltz. That was absolutely bloody it. He wasn’t spending the rest of his life with someone who didn’t even have compliments, only enjoyment. He would find this Harold or whoever he was, and ascertain what went wrong, and if there was the slightest chance of doing it with honor and if Harold was the slightest bit willing, Draco would bond him as his consort instead.

If there wasn’t a chance and Draco had to dishonor himself and his family to break the contract…

Honestly, he was almost at the point where he could think, _Fuck honor._


	2. M.H.

Harry took a step back and glared at the shelf above his head. The tiny spice rack he’d put there had fallen so far back against the wall he couldn’t see it. And the ladder he usually used had a loose rung.

He sighed and called the one who could help him, even though he didn’t want to. “M.H.!”

There was a long sigh from the next room.

“Come here and climb your pole and get my spices down,” Harry demanded, turning around. This room in his large flat was mostly just for storage, but he had plenty of clear space to see the door and the snake that hadn’t yet come through it.

_Feed me a pig._

“You ate one yesterday. Do you _want_ to explode?”

_Promise me a pig._

Harry sighed. It wasn’t easy to get pigs in the middle of New York City, but it could be done. He often had to order animals to feed his patients, anyway, and this was only another example. “Fine. When you’re hungry again next month.”

M.H. came crawling through the door, and wound his three-meter body up the pole that stood next to the shelf. Casually, he stuck his head onto the flat surface and nudged the spice rack forwards. He did that with more care. It had only taken one mouthful of spices to convince him the scents were too strong and he wanted nothing to do with spilling them.

Harry reached up and caught the spice rack as it fell the few millimeters from the shelf. “Thank you.”

_Praise me._

Harry rolled his eyes and left the room. “Thanking you should be sufficient.”

 _Praise me,_ M.H. repeated, slithering after him. He had glowing patches of black and brown that was almost gold on his scales, Harry knew, but he had known that fact for two years. He was running out of unique compliments to praise M.H. with, and compliments were the one thing M.H. remembered with ferocity and would object to if repeated.

“Fine,” he said. “You shine with umber color and impress me mightily.” He knew he hadn’t used that one before.

Silence behind him. Harry began to sift chopped onions into the bowl of chili he was making.

_Define umber._

“Are you ever going to stop talking in imperatives?” Harry eyed the can of beans sitting on the counter and decided he’d used _sufficient_ numbers of them. He had to chop the meat finer, though, or the chili would be filled with floating chunks of it, and M.H. would think they were mice and dive into the bowl again.

_Tell me what an imperative is._

“You might as well go look it up for yourself.” Harry went back to chopping, and ignored the way that M.H. slithered away into the small drawing room. He would go to sleep and forget about this in a minute, and then Harry could actually make dinner.

But the bloody snake didn’t do what he usually did. He came slithering back, slowly and bumping along because of the bulge of the pig inside him, with the dictionary in his coils. He put it down at Harry’s feet and stretched his head up so he could see the chili. Harry protectively covered the meat he was chopping.

_Read me what umber and imperatives are._

Harry closed his eyes. Sometimes he wondered why he put up with M.H., really he did. Then again, he felt like he _had_ to put up with a snake he’d met, once, in Bolivia, who had then stubbornly followed his broomstick flight thousands of miles north and presented himself to Harry months later, demanding to be fed and complimented and named Mighty Hunter.

Harry called him M.H. as almost the only way he could distance himself from the ridiculousness of the situation.

But he sighed, and opened the dictionary, and read abbreviated versions of the definitions M.H. had also demanded. Really, he was the rudest snake Harry had ever met. “An imperative is an order. And umber is a dark yellow-brown.”

_Now read me what I am._

Harry glanced longingly at his chili. But he should have known this would come up once M.H. fetched the dictionary. His determination to hear the things humans said about his kind was the main reason Harry had bought the book in the first place.

So he flipped through pages, although he could have recited it from memory by now, and read dully, “A bushmaster is the world’s longest viper, native to South America, and large enough to take wild pigs. It is colored black and brown, and belongs to the genus _Lachesis_.”

He glanced up to see if M.H. would think of another definition he wanted to hear, but the snake’s head was turned back over his coils so he could admire his reflection in one of his shiny scales. Harry snorted as he remembered that the bloody bushmaster had just shed his skin. It made him hungrier than usual, and vainer.

 _If that’s even possible,_ Harry thought, and tossed the dictionary on the floor for M.H. to take back to the bookshelves in the drawing room. _He_ went back to cooking.

By the time the chili was finished, M.H. hadn’t done admiring himself. Harry shook his head and stepped around the book to reach his table.

_Tell me how the chili tastes._

“Not like mice,” Harry said, which was the right response, since M.H. went back to admiring his reflection again. Harry did manage to sit down and get several burning mouthfuls of chili. He coughed in a delightful way and drank half the glass of milk he’d poured for himself. He had an early day tomorrow, with at least three garter snakes and a chameleon who’d come in to his practice for him to look at. It was harder to communicate with lizards using Parseltongue than snakes—mostly, Harry could make them understand him, but not understand them back—and he needed food and sleep.

So, of course, that was the moment, when he was thinking about it, for the owl to fly through the window and land in the middle of his table, holding out its leg with the letter. M.H. considered it as if he was thinking whether he could fit in the owl alongside the bulge of the pig.

Harry sighed and took the letter. He sighed harder when he saw the handwriting on the outside of the envelope. It was from his mother—well, Lily Potter, sometimes he thought he should call her.

Then again, neither of them really knew whether she had acted enough like a mother to merit the name.

 _Or if I’ve acted enough like a son_.

In the end, since it was only a single sheet of parchment, Harry unfolded the letter and skimmed it.

_You know that your sister’s marriage to Draco Malfoy is approaching. Please don’t come back to England for it. There’s too much chance that you would influence her again._

Harry rolled his eyes and snorted as he cast the letter to the floor. He wished he could set it on fire, but such things were beyond him. He would submerge it in water and get rid of his feelings—and the evidence that he wasn’t a Muggle—that way.

_It’s approaching? Honestly, Mum. It’s two years away. And if Dahlia hasn’t broken free of the influence I had on her by now…_

That just made him feel guilty, though. And sent a distant ache through the scar on his head, which was never completely silent.

Harry scowled, and ate his dinner, and went to bed. When he flicked out the light in the kitchen, M.H. hadn’t looked away from his reflection in his scales.

But sometime during the night, Harry felt the huge weight flop into the bed next to him. Harry rolled towards it. _Bloody selfish snake, stealing all the heat instead of giving any._

_Then again, it’s not like there’s ever going to be anyone else there…_

Luckily, he was asleep again before he could follow out all the implications of that thought.

*

Draco stepped back into the Manor with a frown, and whipped his cloak from his shoulders hard enough to send the snow scattering. It was only a fine, light fall, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want any of it touching him.

He sat down in front of a blazing fire, snapped a bit at the house-elf who didn’t already have his mug of hot tea ready, and then sipped it and stared into the flames.

There should have been more about the exile of a child from a family as prominent as the Potters. Especially a child who had apparently survived the attack of the Dark Lord _by himself_. Draco had never fully understood that James and Lily hadn’t been home when the Dark Lord arrived. Something had lured them away, a diversion by a traitorous “friend” now in Azkaban, who had promised to stay with the baby while they ran after the distraction.

_Like the Gryffindors they were._

Instead, the friend had turned out to be a Death Eater and summoned the Dark Lord. And then…something…happened. No one really knew what it was. But Lily and James had arrived during the tail end of it, and survived the magical disturbance, and fought for their lives, and bound and defeated their Death Eater friend, Peter Pettigrew.

They’d refused all interviews with the papers, and hidden behind the infamous Potter wards when the reporters tried to insist. At last, the lack of fresh information had carried the story off the front page. And the next year, the Potters had quietly changed the betrothal contract between their family and Draco’s, without notifying anyone why. And sent away the child later.

_His name is Harry. The one who was meant to be my consort._

There hadn’t been any pictures of him. The newspapers had said he was “cute,” but that was a baby word that told Draco nothing about what he looked like now.

Draco slouched further back into his chair and sighed. So much for the newspaper research he’d spent the morning doing. He’d have to attempt something he hadn’t thought of until he was walking out of the Ministry. It wasn’t…

As much as Draco could think of anything not directly touching his family as a matter of honor, this was. And it made him flinch to contemplate it.

But the only people he could think of who held the answers were his parents and the Potters. And the Potters weren’t continually suspicious of attacks from every direction and armed with bezoars in their pockets and spells on their tongues.

As though his thoughts had summoned her, Draco’s mother appeared in the far door of the sitting room, studying him carefully. She cast, as if by instinct, a small spell that Draco knew from the wand movements would cool the air around her. “Draco. I wish to speak to you.”

 _Which means not in a setting so comfortable for me._ Draco sighed, snapped his fingers, and handed his teacup back to the elf who appeared to take it. “Yes, Mother.”

He followed her down several corridors that seemed to bend more sharply than usual this morning, and be made of bleaker marble. Draco eyed them and shuddered. He was imagining sharing them for the rest of his life with a bride who insisted on being his perfect mirror and devoting herself to him while never letting him see beyond her polished surface.

It chilled him enough that he nearly considered trying his plan on Mother. Yes, she had the bezoar, but he wasn’t going to poison her. And its mere presence wouldn’t protect her from other potions.

But when she came to her destination, Draco’s pulse nearly leaped out of his chest. It was _Father’s_ study they were going to. That put paid to all his dreams of getting away with using Veritaserum on his mother.

He walked in behind Narcissa, and saw Lucius standing up from his usual chair, which was on the other side of a formidable desk made of cherry, so shiny that Draco often wondered why he didn’t see more reflections in it. But there was another chair beside his, which Draco had never seen before. Narcissa walked over to the chair, turned her back to it, and stood facing Draco like his father’s fraternal twin.

Then they both sank back at once. Draco winced. He understood what this was about now, why they had chairs beside each other facing his one.

But he took the one chair anyway, because it was unthinkable for a Malfoy to run away from any situation. He clasped his hands in front of him and maintained his silence. At least he could make them work for that much.

His parents glanced at each other, communicating in the silent way Draco wanted. He felt a bit of steel arrive in his spine as he thought about that. _They would condemn me to a marriage with someone I can never share that with._

“We have made a decision, Draco.”

“One that I trust you will approve of.” That was Mother’s code for “of course you will.” Draco only inclined his head to show he was listening.

“There are considerations that you may not be aware of, when it comes to certain political movements in the Ministry,” said Lucius, and exchanged another glance with Narcissa, this one a look that Draco resented being shut out of. “You know that some people have never trusted me to hold the good of Muggleborns in mind.”

Draco didn’t snort, but if Blaise and Pansy had been there, he didn’t think he could have resisted.

Father narrowed his eyes slightly, but continued. “And now Albus Dumbledore has decided to give up the Headmastership of Hogwarts and commit himself full-time to the Wizengamot.”

Draco did gape, then, ignoring his mother’s frown. “I thought you said once Dumbledore would never come out of there, Father.”

“I thought so, then. And it does mean that I will have a slightly freer hand in Hogwarts in the future. But it means a potential loss of power and prestige in the Wizengamot. We need something to make ourselves appear more congenial to the Light families and as if we are pursuing different ambitions than political ones.”

“So we are moving up your marriage to Dahlia,” said Narcissa.

“What? _No_!”

“You find fault with your betrothed bride?” Narcissa looked as if she had no eyebrows at the moment, so high were they raised.

“But it will show us sealing our alliance with the Potters instead of simply talking about it, and the papers will be full of the wedding preparations instead of reporting on my every move,” said his father. “And there are even some on the Wizengamot foolish enough to believe that will be all I am _thinking_ about, as well.”

“You never answered my question, Draco.”

Draco decided he had to move on to an even more desperate plan than using Veritaserum on his parents. He had to tell them the truth.

“Yes, I find fault with her,” he said bluntly, and his mother gasped a little. “She never _shares_ anything with me. Not like the way you two share things.” He waved his hand wildly up and down between his parents. “You actually know each other’s thoughts and opinions and dislikes. She parrots my opinions and tells me that she mildly likes a lot of things but would give up any one of them to please me, and she hasn’t told me her _honest_ thoughts on anything since I’ve known her! There’s just this shining wall somewhere behind her eyes I can’t get through. I don’t want to marry her. I don’t want to break honor, either, but I thought—”

He didn’t get to explain his plan to substitute Harry for the contract so he would still be bonding a Potter, because his mother said, very softly, very coldly, “You will not break honor.”

“And I think you are being overdramatic,” Father added, his lip curled. “You look at a long-standing marriage and imagine that this level of trust and confidence should belong to two newlyweds. Foolish, Draco, beyond _permission_. You will achieve this level with Dahlia eventually.”

“I haven’t in eight years,” Draco said. “ _Please_.” He nearly slipped from the chair and onto his knees. “I don’t want to marry her.” He thought of something else then. “And she’s not even of age! How can she get married? She has to be legally a Potter until she’s seventeen, unless someone else _adopts_ her. And I couldn’t marry my sister!”

“There are certain forms of marriage that we are considering,” Narcissa said, and slid a bracelet of ivory down her wrist. “For example, the bride protection. You would be married in name for two years, until her seventeenth birthday. You would not sleep together, and the Potters in return would not receive any rights to call themselves part of our family. It would essentially be a deeper form of the betrothal.”

“But marriage in the eyes of the law,” Lucius hastened to add. “You should welcome this, Draco. Two years will give you the time to get to know her and establish the trust between you and her that you want.”

“And you will become reconciled,” said Narcissa, as if that were a good thing. “You can discover each other. You will give up thoughts of running away and marrying someone else.”

_She knows me that well? Of course she does. She used to know when I was contemplating sneaking out of the house before I’d even done it._

Draco swallowed enough air to drown more protests than he had right now, and voiced the only one he thought might do some good, given his parents’ concern for reputation. “But I’m four years older than she is. Won’t there be concerns that I’m taking advantage of her? There are already some murmurs about the betrothal.” Granted, those came from his enemies in Slytherin when he still attended Hogwarts, but Lucius always said that even enemies could be made to work for you, if you used them well enough.

“Not with the bride protection type of betrothal. You’ll always have a chaperone, and you will see her more at the Potters’ house than here.”

“Even if I’m twenty-one when she’s seventeen—”

“This is final, Draco.”

And Draco knew when to retreat. He bowed his head a little and sighed. “All right. I can’t pretend to be delighted, but I do hope I will grow reconciled in time.”

“Of course you will,” said Narcissa, and there was tenderness in her voice for the first time. “You can’t always live with someone and eternally hate them. You would go mad. You will find the charms of obedience and submission when you have been around her long enough.”

 _I would rather kiss a turtle._ But Draco kept his expression the same, and nodded and agreed, and escaped as soon as he could.

He would steal a march on his parents as they had on him. Draco made sure to take the vial of Veritaserum he already had brewed from that time a month ago when he’d been trying to discover whether Crabbe actually had the slightest spark of intelligence in his brain.

He was grimly aware, as he put on his cloak, that using a truth potion on his betrothed’s parents came nearly as close to violating honor as using it on his betrothed herself would.

_But not if they never remember it._

Draco cast the Floo powder into his private fireplace and called out, “Stone Nest!”


	3. Potter Truths

Draco expected a house-elf to meet him as he stepped out of the Floo, but instead it was Lilac, Dahlia's younger sister, who this September would be a third-year in Gryffindor. She widened her eyes the minute she saw him and performed a curtsey, then said, "Um. Dahlia's in her room."

Draco eyed her critically for a moment. She was a lot different than Dahlia, expressing actual emotion, but far too young for him--not to mention that she was so interested in Healing Draco doubted she would notice any boy trying to propose to her who wasn't holding a potions vial. "I didn't come to see her. Where are your parents?"

Lilac's spine straightened a little, maybe because she didn't think she was about to get caught in a stony glaring session-- _she_ knew well enough how Draco felt about Dahlia--and nodded towards the right. Draco nodded back and walked away, feeling her hazel eyes burn with curiosity after him.

 _No matter._ Draco intended to set up enough privacy spells around the room that neither Dahlia, Lilac, or the Potters' five-year-old son Eric could hear anything that went on in it.

James Potter was sitting on a chair in front of the fire glaring at a potion, while Lily sat beside him with a chessboard in her hands that she appeared to be playing both sides of. They shot him looks of surprise, and then Lily stood and inclined her head. "Draco. We didn't know you and Dahlia had made an appointment to meet today."

"We didn't, actually. I had some concerns about the betrothal, and I wanted to speak to both of you about them." Draco took off his cloak and hung it on a peg near the generous fireplace.

Lily looked at James, and they seemed to communicate in a way similar to the silent tongue his parents used. "If this is about moving the wedding up..."

"It is." Draco smiled as he slid his hand around the vial of Veritaserum in one robe pocket. "Tangentially."

"Your father has his concerns, which are political, but they make sense for all that." James tried to put the potion aside, but Lily laid a polite elbow into his ribs, and he glared again and swallowed most of it. It was a glowing green, and it must be some wound-healing potion Draco hadn't heard of. He knew James had been wounded fairly recently in a raid gone wrong. "And I won't deny that I'll be glad to have Dahlia married."

"Why? Has someone else offered for her?" Draco paused his hand. He would still use the Veritaserum on the Potters, because at this point the need to know what had happened to Harry pounded in him like a second heartbeat, but if someone else had offered for Dahlia and she wanted him, then that would solve one of his problems.

"Oh, no. Of course not. They know how devoted she is to you."

 _Devoted like a doll is devoted to its owner._ "I see. Then what is it?"

"Dahlia is almost defining herself by this marriage," Lily said, her face solemn. "Not even most of her pure-blood friends do that. If it happens younger than she was expecting, that gives her another two years to grow up, to start anticipating _other_ things." She hesitated, then added, "No offense, Draco, but I don't think anyone should be the center of such fervent devotion. It always makes the collision with a real flaw more painful later."

Draco smiled politely. He would have agreed, perhaps, during his last year in Hogwarts, but now he doubted Dahlia would show such emotion even if he ever disappointed her. "None taken. I do have some questions I'd like to ask you, though."

Behind his back, his wand waved, putting up the spells that would turn children and house-elves alike away from the room until the conversation finished, and locking the doors.

"But you've known Dahlia all her life. What questions could there be?"

"Come on, Lils. If he has some qualms, I think we ought to treat them seriously. Dahlia doesn't, but that's not unusual for boys and girls to feel differently."

Lily gave James an exasperated glance, and Draco struck. Neither Potter had their wands out, and that was the best chance he would get. He didn't dare contest against James's Auror training or Lily's several-years-in-a-row dueling championship for adults in Britain.

He Disarmed them wordlessly, so they knew nothing about it until their wands came flying out of their sleeves. Draco snatched them, spun out of the way of the kick James automatically launched at him--too far away to connect anyway--and then bound them to their chairs. James gaped at him in disbelief. Lily sank back with her eyes burning.

"We should have checked him for the Imperius Curse right away. Who could not want to marry Dahlia?"

"Those wards haven't come down, Lils. I would have felt them."

"The reason I don't want to marry your precious daughter," Draco said, feeling secure enough since he would use the Memory Charm on them afterwards, "is that she's as boring as dirt."

That made Lily join James in gaping. Draco rolled his eyes. "Even if she acts differently in the bosom of her loving family, you must have noticed how she acted around me. Perfect and doll-like and always agreeing. How could I want a woman like that?"

"Your...mother is a woman like that!"

"Then you haven't noticed her subtle signals when she's angry." Draco smiled at them, all teeth. "I want to know what happened to the Potter child I was originally betrothed to."

James's mouth slammed shut. The flame in Lily's eyes grew fierce. Neither spoke.

Draco shrugged. Seeing how much they would volunteer was more a game than anything. He hadn't expected substantial facts without the Veritaserum, not when they'd hidden them for so long. "All right," he said, and moved the vial of potion into view. "Bottoms up."

"You can't--"

Draco used another wordless charm to freeze James's head in place, and dripped the three drops of Veritaserum on his tongue. He had to do the same to Lily. She only glared at him in contempt as he massaged her throat to make her swallow.

"If you would have just told me, I wouldn't have had to do this."

"There were reasons..."

The potion took hold of her then, and Draco shook his head as he watched the glaze grip her eyes. "Well, reasons you'll tell me in a minute. Where is Harry Potter?"

"In New York City," said James, with little jerks of his neck that might have meant he was trying to fight the Veritaserum.

Draco blinked. "You're joking."

Neither of them said anything, since that hadn't registered as a question.

"Why is he there?"

"He's a Squib," said Lily this time, at the same moment as James said, "He's dangerous for our other children."

Draco sorted out the words, and couldn't stop himself from laughing so loudly he would have earned a frown from his mother. Luckily, she wasn't there. "How could he be dangerous to your other children if he was a Squib?"

He directed this question more firmly and exclusively at Lily, so she was the one who answered. "When he was two, he got filled with Lord Voldemort's magic. It suppressed his own magic. So he's a Squib. But the influence of Lord Voldemort is dangerous for anyone else. He turned Dahlia into what she is today."

Draco stared with his mouth open. "What she is today?"

"Gentle and compliant and with no opinions of her own. He suppressed them."

Draco had never heard of such a thing. Even the Dark Lord, at the height of his power, had used Imperius on people, or blackmailed them, or tortured them into doing what he wanted, or tried to lure them to his side with promises of power. Why would he have done that if he could simply influence them in some direction?

But neither of the Potters was answering something Draco didn't ask, so he finally said, "He was four years old. Why would you think it was him?"

"He was around her. And Dahlia started changing. She stopped asking questions and she stopped saying things she thought. He suppressed her."

Draco shook his head. The Potters believed it was true, but Veritaserum couldn't distinguish absolute truth from what someone believed. For the first time, Draco found himself impatient with that limitation of the potion. "Why did my parents change the contract? Or why did you change the contract?"

"He was a Squib after the attack by Voldemort. Your parents didn't want him betrothed to you."

Draco grimaced, the only acknowledgment he would make to himself that he had asked the questions in the wrong order. "Why did my parents want a betrothal to the Potter family in the first place?"

"They knew of the prophecy that said Harry would defeat Voldemort. They wanted to be on the winning side."

Draco sagged slowly back. _A prophecy. No wonder that some of my attempts to sort things out never made sense._ A prophecy would account for both Voldemort's interest in an eighteen-month-old and why his parents might change sides, or think a half-blood boy worth their son's time as consort. "What happened that night?"

"We don't know. We weren't there," said James.

Draco rolled his eyes to acknowledge Veritaserum's other limitations. "What is the _theory_ of what happened that night? Of why Harry became a Squib?"

"Harry had been prophesied as Voldemort's equal. The magic that he struck him with was the exact equal of Harry's magic, but Dark instead of Light. Harry absorbed it and kept it from affecting him or killing him, and he drained so much magic that Voldemort's body couldn't sustain itself. But he also absorbed so much that all his will has to go to holding onto that magic. He can't use any. He doesn't have any of his own left uncovered."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "What do you think will happen if Harry does let go of the magic?"

"Voldemort returns."

Draco could see why no one would want that, but he still had questions. "What made you think of this theory?"

"Dumbledore and the Unspeakables thought of it."

Draco rolled his eyes a little, and said, "All right, why do they think that?"

"It was the only thing that made sense. There were no rituals or wards that would have helped Harry resist. Only equal magic could best Voldemort's power. Your parents wanted to betroth him to you even more after he was born because they could feel his magic from rooms away. But after he met Voldemort, that sense of power was gone."

"Gone?"

"Like it was smothered."

Draco spent a few minutes thinking about this. There was some life returning to Lily's eyes, so he couldn't spend too long, but he did need to sort through his thoughts and make sense of what he'd heard.

His parents' motives in accepting a betrothal contract made sense now, as did their motives after Harry had apparently become a Squib. They couldn't possibly break the contract and bring shame to their family, but they also couldn't bear the shame of a Squib consort. So they had demanded the only solution they could, or gone along with the solution the Potters proposed, that they wait for another Potter child to be born who would have magic and could fulfill the contract. Then everyone could keep their honor.

But it still seemed strange to Draco that they would think their son had influenced their daughter in some scary negative Dark way when he was only four years older than Dahlia, or that they would think Voldemort's magic was caged, Harry's magic smothered, instead of them destroying each other in a perfect meeting of opposites. There was something he was still missing.

"How did Dumbledore and the Unspeakables put together the theory of what happened?" he asked next.

"Voldemort hit him with the Killing Curse. It left a scar. The scar resonated with such powerful Dark magic that they could feel Voldemort's presence, and the presence of Harry's magic, far under that. And Harry started displaying talents he never had before."

"Such as?" Someone ought to invent a more powerful version of Veritaserum that would make dragging answers out of people easier, in Draco's opinion.

"Parseltongue. And understanding words that he couldn't understand when they were spoken in front of him before."

Draco felt as though someone had snapped him upright with a whip. He had never thought that Parseltongue might be one of those “signs” that Harry was possessed of Voldemort’s magic. “ _Parseltongue_?”

“Yes.”

There was a spark in James’s eyes as if he was fighting the Veritaserum, too. Draco hurried on. “What happened when he spoke Parseltongue?”

“He could talk with snakes.”

Draco snarled a little. “No. I mean, how did you react? How did my parents react, if they knew? Was that what made you make the decision to send him away?”

Their voices overlapped each other’s as they spoke, but Draco picked up the important parts easily enough. Yes, his parents had reacted by agreeing that Harry should be sent away and raised by a Squib in South America who apparently was an old acquaintance of Narcissa’s mother, Druella Rosier. They had kept Harry until he was ten years old. That was old enough.

And the Potters had reacted with horror, and the insistence that Harry was corrupting his sister, and might corrupt Lilac if he was let near her often enough. Dahlia had _changed_. The magic Harry carried was dangerous when he used it, which he did when he was speaking Parseltongue or using words before he could speak them properly.

_So he learned to hate and fear the one special talent he had. They sent him to someone who didn’t mind that, someone they didn’t think could be influenced because they were a Squib. Or maybe they didn’t care about her being influenced._

Draco asked, “What decided you that he was _influencing_ my lovely betrothed instead of her just changing because she spent time with him?”

“Who changes dramatically like that? And we could feel the malevolence of the magic glowing through his skin all the time. He would corrupt any Light wizard or witch he spent time with! Muggles, Squibs, they couldn’t be touched, but wizards could!”

Draco wanted to laugh. _And they seem to think I’m Light_.

“We sent him to live where he would be safe, and so would the other people around him,” Lily continued. There was wetness glistening at the edges of her lashes, and she seemed to be volunteering the information of her own free will. “We did the best we could, we kept him as long as we could, but it was so _obvious_ , what he was doing to Dahlia. And he would never be able to have a normal life in our world. Lilian Rosier promised she could teach him to blend into the Muggle world and use his talents to best effect.”

 _Someone less superstitious. I hope he_ has _had a better life._ But Draco still intended to go after Harry, because otherwise, the Potters and his parents would still insist that he marry Dahlia. Draco was confident of his ability to erase their memories of this conversation, but not plant a suggestion that would make them decide he shouldn’t marry their daughter.

And because—well. Because he thought he might live better with someone who had Dark magic, even if he couldn’t use it, and spoke Parseltongue than with Dahlia.

“What does Harry look like?”

Both the Potters looked thrown by the question, but it was James who answered. “My hair, and Lily’s eyes.”

“He sounds stunning,” Draco purred, and relished the way they both looked at him with dislike.

“You have no idea—no idea what would happen to your family if you dissolved the contract,” said James, and threw off the Veritaserum to lean forwards in the bonds Draco had inflicted on him. “You have no idea how Harry would corrupt and destroy you. And he would never _mean_ to.”

“That’s the sad thing, the tragic thing,” said Lily, and her eyes glinted with the tears that she pretended to be crying. “He never meant to. But he couldn’t help the influence leaking out from him and poisoning Dahlia’s mind. And you won’t be able to stop it from corrupting you, either.”

“Tell me how to find him.”

Lily balked, still, but the words spiraled off her tongue before she could stop them. “I send the post owls to Harry Potter at Saint Patrick’s Flat, New York City.”

Draco nodded. He would write to Harry first. It seemed like the best thing for both of them. If Harry refused to see him, then Draco would find a way to show up in person.

“But I’ve already written telling him not to come back to England for the wedding,” Lily added virtuously. “You needn’t think that he’s going to show up and save you from joining your hand to Dahlia’s.”

“I never intended that. I’m going to save myself. And him,” Draco added, because it sounded as though Harry could use someone who thought of _him_ for once.

“We’re going to remember,” James growled, his arms straining against the bonds. “No matter what kind of charm you put on us. We’ll remember, we’ll make sure Dahlia is happy, and we’ll keep her from being corrupted any more by Voldemort.”

Draco only shook his head. There were lots of things he wanted to say, but on the whole, he thought Harry was the one who deserved the chance to say them. “I don’t think so.” He banished the ropes with one flick of his wand, and _Obliviated_ them both in the same pass, before James could leap out of his chair the way he wanted to. “We had a pleasant chat about the forthcoming wedding, and you’re satisfied that Dahlia will be happy.”

Their eyes glazed, they murmured something, and Draco excused himself as soon as he could. He had a letter to write, an owl to send, and a consort to court.

 _It might not work out exactly as I hope, but Harry is_ already _more interesting than Dahlia._


	4. Strangers

Harry groaned as he watched the owl fluttering through the window. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with his mother’s entreaties or orders or whatever they were, and he didn’t want to keep M.H. from eating the owl. He had a sick ball python that the Squib owner was convinced would die soon, and he had brought her home so he could examine her in privacy. Even other Squibs were convinced Parseltongue was evil.

_Give me the bird._

Harry shook his head without looking at him. “I can still see the pig.”

_Buy me my own bird when I can eat again._

Harry snorted as he placed the tank with the python carefully on the edge of the table and then turned wearily to the owl. To his surprise, it wasn’t his mother’s familiar brown bird. This owl was much bigger and black, and it sat intelligently in the middle of the table well back from M.H.’s reach, watching him with huge golden eyes.

Harry frowned. Other than his mother, the only wizard who wrote to him regularly was Professor Dumbledore, and this wasn’t his owl, either. He shook his head. Well, maybe one of them had borrowed an owl from somewhere. He could still rip the letter up without reading it if it was his mother’s.

“Let me have the letter, please,” he said, holding out his hand.

To his surprise, the owl glided over and sat on his arm as if it thought that was what he wanted. It inspected him, twisting its head upside-down. Harry blinked. Maybe it had really meant to take the letter to someone else.

But in the end, the owl bowed its head and preened his hair gently while it held out its leg. Harry shook his head about the unpredictable behavior of owls in general as he opened the envelope.

The handwriting was unfamiliar. Harry swallowed. The thought that his parents or Dumbledore might have told someone else about him made his stomach grow a lump the size of the pig in M.H.’s.

 _Dear Harry Potter,_ said the flowing, elegant salutation.

_I assume you know of me, but we won’t have met. My name is Draco Malfoy. I’m currently betrothed to your sister Dahlia—_

Harry rolled his eyes and crushed the letter in his fist. So _that_ was it. Malfoy just wanted to make sure that Harry wouldn’t come back to England for his wedding, either, or otherwise embarrass his bloody family by making it known that his brother-in-law was a Squib. Harry wondered why he had even bothered to write. Lily would have been able to tell him that they’d concealed Harry well.

Harry tossed the parchment to the floor. It wasn’t worth his effort to burn. Then he tried to shake the clingy owl off his arm.

The owl twisted its head and fixed him with a sharp look. Then it launched itself. Harry winced as the claws cut into his arm, but he had plenty of bandages on hand to tie up wounds inflicted by overenthusiastic patients. He turned to the bathroom.

Then he realized the owl hadn’t flown out the window. Instead, it swooped low over the floor, picked up the crumpled parchment, and brought it back to him, settling heavily on his shoulder this time. Harry tried to twitch it off. It made the ominous sound of something with sharp weapons near his temple and eyes and no compunction about using them.

 _Tell me what it says_ , M.H. said, and reared up so he could stare at the parchment. Or the owl. Harry thought he was probably more interested in getting close to the owl and seeing how wide he could open his jaws.

Harry rolled his eyes, but smoothed the parchment out. He wouldn’t get any peace until he did. He read aloud, knowing M.H. wouldn’t understand all the concepts, either, and would probably demand an explanation later.

“ _I’m currently betrothed to your sister Dahlia. However, I learned from your parents that my contract with originally with you. I don’t like your sister’s lack of personality and opinions, and would prefer to make you my bonded consort._ ”

Harry felt his voice dry up, and he stared at the parchment in utter shock. He’d known, because Lily had once explained it to him, what had happened to the betrothal contract with the Malfoys once he lost his magic, but he’d never thought…

_He must not know I’m a Squib. That’s the only reason he would be writing._

M.H. reached higher, and the owl rustled, and Harry shook his head and continued reading, his voice a little shaky.

“ _I much prefer someone who has his own opinions, and someone who’s lived away from Britain and outside the pure-blood world will be very different from me. Other things your parents have told me about you make you sound like an ideal consort for me—the only one I could have and retain the Malfoy honor as well as avoid being married to someone who disgusts me, but also someone I could want for myself. I would like to visit you. I know you are in America and that would mean an International Portkey. I would arrange this. Please consent to see me. This would make a large change for you, as I would want to move back to Britain and present you as my consort to those who know the Malfoys. However, I would never expect you to interact with your family. Frankly, they don’t sound as if they’ve been much a family to you._

“ _To alleviate some of your concerns, I am a Dark wizard, and I have no concerns about either your magic or your Parseltongue_.

“ _I await the return of Praetorian with your letter. Please do allow him to inspect you. He is one of those owls who has opinions about potential family consorts._

“ _Yours sincerely,_  
_Draco Malfoy_.”

Harry shook his head as he finished. No, he didn’t know Harry was a Squib. His reference to Harry’s magic proved it.

“You’ll just have to tell him that I don’t have magic,” he told Praetorian, when he turned to find the owl regarding him. “He’s laboring under a misapprehension somehow.” Harry didn’t know how that could have happened, when Malfoy must have spoken with his parents, but then again, there were such things as lies of omission.

Praetorian didn’t take the hint to get off Harry’s shoulder so Harry could write the return letter. He stayed there and hooted cheerfully while Harry carefully chose a sheet of notebook paper and a pen. He _had_ to emphasize to Malfoy that he was dreaming an impossible dream.

Meanwhile, M.H. was wreathing a soft circle on the floor, the way he did when he was too distracted by food to form a coherent thought. _What is a consort? Why does he call himself a Dark wizard? Why does he think you have ordinary magic? Tell me all these things._

Harry didn’t know how to explain what a consort was when he barely understood himself, but he tried to say things about mates and eggs in Parseltongue, and he talked about wars between different kinds of wizards—M.H. thought a war was basically all the wizards in the world trying to bite each other—and how Malfoy must be mistaken. At least M.H. finally calmed down enough to let Harry write the letter.

_Hello Malfoy,_

_I know who you are. My parents have written me several letters about your betrothal to Dahlia. However, I don’t understand the rest of what you write. I don’t have magic. I’m a Squib. That must have been something you didn’t know. And don’t bother coming over here. No matter what kind of revenge you’re planning on your family, it isn’t going to be worth it._

_As for your dislike of Dahlia, I’m the reason she’s that way. You’ll solve nothing by extending the hand of friendship to me._

_Sincerely,_  
_Harry Potter._

 _Put something in the letter about me,_ M.H. commanded haughtily, as his latest attempt to sneak up on Praetorian failed.

Harry rolled his eyes and added a postscript. It was true that M.H. couldn’t read and technically wouldn’t have any idea if Harry didn’t do as he asked, but on the other hand, he tended to smell lies.

_P.S. I see that you’re aware of my Parseltongue. What you may not be aware of is that I make my living treating sick reptiles, since I can make even lizards understand me most of the time, and that I have a bushmaster named M.H. who keeps me company. I’m a much more unsuitable consort for you than you imagine._

Although Praetorian still made a little hissing noise when Harry held the letter out, which Harry assumed was disapproval of the notebook paper, at least he took it and flew off. Harry watched him go, one hand absently stroking the side of the tank with the sick python in it.

He knew he would have to be alone for the rest of his life because he couldn’t explain to Muggles or other Squibs about his magic, and it would hurt other wizards if Harry let his guard down or succumbed to the temptation to use it. And it stung like the bite of a rat snake to give up an opportunity with someone who seemed to want that from him.

 _Stop smelling melancholy_.

Harry sighed and turned to the ball python. Malfoy only wanted that because he didn’t understand Harry’s situation, he reminded himself. He would back off once he knew Harry was a Squib.

“Hello, lovely one,” he told the ball python, aware that he only got away with the compliment because M.H. had already been called that once. “What makes you hurt?”

*

Draco felt his eyebrows rising higher and higher as he considered the “letter” that Praetorian had carried back to him. He understood the significance of the notebook paper and the letters that didn’t look as if they’d been made by a quill. Harry was declaring himself Muggle, or Squib.

Non-wizarding, anyway.

_And don’t bother coming over here._

_Well, I wanted someone stubborn. My prayer has been answered._

Draco gave a hoarse chuckle and leaned back against the chair he sat in, staring thoughtfully into space. So far, there had been no consequences to his _Obliviating_ of the Potters. They had forgotten completely about the conversation, and went on sending him owls with plans for the wedding. Dahlia sent him letters, too, simpering prettily about the notion of having an early marriage. There were so many birds coming and going that no one had even noticed his Praetorian being gone for an unusually long time.

Draco turned and studied the other thing Praetorian had brought back, the thing Harry wouldn’t have realized he was giving.

Praetorian liked to preen people’s hair. Draco had first tried to train the habit, inappropriate for a Malfoy owl, out of him, and then realized how useful it could be, at least once he found the books on sympathetic magic in his ancestors’ collection.

There was a strand of half-curling black hair floating in a crystal ball of water on Draco’s bedside table now. With that, he didn’t need Apparition coordinates. He could hold the hair in his hand and will himself to the side of the owner if he used a powerful enough ritual.

_Do I still want to, when I have such a flat refusal in hand?_

After a moment, Draco nodded. Harry was still his best option, and he seemed to be refusing mostly because he thought Draco couldn’t possibly know the truth. When he realized that Draco had accepted his consort had some problem with his magic—

_He can’t really be a Squib, not if he’s a Parselmouth. That’s an active magical talent._

\--then he would possibly be more reasonable. It might take a while, Draco admitted to himself as he crossed his bedroom to the locked drawer in the table next to his bed. Draco would have to show Harry he was serious, and do some serious courting, not simply propose an alliance the way Harry might have seen his letter as doing.

But Draco had the weapons and the will to do that courting.

He unlocked the drawer by brushing one of Praetorian’s tail feathers, covered with his own blood, against the lock. It sprang open, and Draco took out the shimmering glass bonding bracelets and turned them around against the sunlight coming through the window.

Most pure-bloods considered glass a plebian material to make bonding bracelets out of, but Draco had had ancestors who preferred it. For one thing, blood could be added to the bracelets at the moment of either bonding or acceptance of the betrothal, and circulate inside the glass, shining and providing a powerful magical protection.

For another, the glass was set with small emeralds and chips of jade, and if it was true that his future consort had eyes the color of Lily Potter’s, then Draco couldn’t imagine a pair of bracelets that would complement him better.

Draco sighed a little and tucked the bracelets inside a heavily-enchanted piece of silk. That would keep them from banging against each other and taking any damage, as well as being hurt in any way by the long-distance Apparition Draco was about to take them on. Then he turned around and plucked the little black hair from the ball of water.

As Draco readied himself to perform the ritual that would take him to Harry’s side, he felt an undeniable tingle of excitement.

_I know that he’ll be upset with me at first. But I have to do this. I have to show him that we might give each other so much more than merely an escape with honor and a way to fulfill the terms of the contract._

*

_Someone is here._

Harry snapped his eyes open immediately at M.H.’s hiss. The only time he had ever heard the snake speak in something other than an order or a question was when a Muggle had broken into his flat over a year ago.

“So someone got into the flat without disrupting any of the locks or spells?” Harry whispered, sitting up and reaching for his glasses. He couldn’t cast protective spells himself, but he’d healed a wizard’s pet anaconda a year ago, and Mr. Moore had been grateful enough to put up some basic wards.

_Yes._

Harry grimaced. That probably meant a member of his loving _family_ was here to tell him, again, to stay away from the wedding. Or maybe they’d found out about Malfoy writing to him and would warn him off from contacting his future brother-in-law.

“Harry?”

The voice was unfamiliar. Harry blinked and tried to remember how long it had been since he’d heard his father’s voice, or Sirius’s. But then he shook his head. He thought he would still recognize them. And this was a male voice, so it couldn’t be Lily or Dahlia.

Not that Dahlia was supposed to have access to the kind of magic that would let her bypass locks and wards, anyway. But they let her do all sorts of things she wasn’t supposed to.

Harry closed his eyes when he felt the scar on his forehead writhe. He had to stop thinking like that, or he would reach out with Dark magic, _Voldemort’s_ magic, and that would cause effects he could never predict or control.

_Tell me I can eat him._

That meant M.H. didn’t recognize him, either. Harry frowned and trotted into the main room of the flat, flicking on the light. The man standing and staring at M.H. looked up and shielded his eyes a second later, in the manner Harry had seen before when a wizard wasn’t used to Muggle electricity.

And his hair was so pale, and his mien so haughty without even trying, and his cloak so well-cut and of such rich green cloth, that Harry knew who he was without being told. He glared. “What did I _tell_ you? I don’t have magic!”

Malfoy lowered his hand, blinked a little more as if he wanted to make sure the light wouldn’t get brighter, and then gave Harry a charming smile. His hair was more gold than white, although it hadn’t looked like that at first, and he had a pale hawthorn wand that he slid into his pocket.

“I understand that you don’t have magic in the traditional sense—”

“I don’t have magic _at all_!” Harry folded his arms and glared at Malfoy.

“You have to have magic to be a Parselmouth, and I know the story your parents told me, about the Dark Lord’s magic supposedly suppressing your own and making you a Squib. I have to tell you, I don’t believe that one at all.”

Malfoy was staring at him hard, harder than Harry would have thought someone would use even to evaluate a potential spouse. A second later, Harry remembered he’d gone to bed without a shirt, and he flushed. Malfoy was looking at his chest.

He didn’t stammer at getting caught, though. He only gave Harry a slight smile and raised his eyes back to Harry’s face. “You’re quite the sight,” he whispered. “That’s not something they told me, either. At least, not willingly.”

Harry swallowed and told himself that he could do this, that he would not be dictated to and he wouldn’t be swayed by praise. Of course Malfoy would praise him. He had something to gain if Harry decided to bond with him.

He didn’t understand everything. Then Harry would have to _make_ him understand.

“Do you see this?” he asked, lifting his fringe away from his scar.

“Yes.” Malfoy studied it and shrugged a little. “Should I be doing something other than looking at it?”

“It’s the sign of what happened when Voldemort came to our house,” Harry said, and noticed, to some surprise, that Malfoy didn’t flinch at the name. Harry had thought he would, since he’d been calling him “the Dark Lord” all along. “His magic got absorbed by mine somehow. It muted my magic. Now the only power I can use is _his_. It’s why I’m a Parselmouth when no Potter ever has been.”

“I knew that.”

“You did?”

“Of course. I considered it carefully before I decided to make you the offer of becoming my consort, Harry. And what your parents and you have told me so far only makes you more attractive to me.”

Harry snarled at him, and ignored the way the scar was moving on his forehead this time. If it would help scare off Malfoy, then he could use it. “You _don’t understand_! I can only get away with Parseltongue because it’s so instinctive and doesn’t take a lot of magic. The rest of the time, the power fights to get out of my control. It could harm someone the instant I succumb to temptation. I can’t use it. I can’t be your consort, because _I don’t have magic._ And I can’t use it, because then I would turn into _him_. I’d already done horrible things before I was old enough to understand what was happening and control it!”

Malfoy looked at him with the oddest expression Harry had ever seen. “So they’ve made you a living sacrifice to contain the Dark Lord’s magic, in case he returns? Is that what you have to do? Live and know you have magic and _never use it_?”

“I—that’s right,” Harry said, thrown. The tone wasn’t one he’d heard, either.

Malfoy gave him a tight smile and clenched his hand around something in his pocket. “Well, I think that version of events is wrong. I have some things here I hope will prove it to you. But in the meantime, can we sit down and have a cup of tea?” He wandered over to the kitchen doorway and turned to look back at Harry. “Are you coming?”

Harry stared at him. “It _doesn’t matter to you_ that I have the Dark Lord’s power in my soul?”

“You don’t need to call him that. I can cope with his name.”

“You’re—you’re _strange_ ,” said Harry weakly, aware that M.H. had gone to sleep on the floor behind him instead of staying awake and begging to bite the intruder as he normally would have done. Not that that was necessarily a good sign. It only meant Malfoy was so weird that he was outside the bushmaster’s experience.

“And you’re my choice.” Malfoy swept his eyes over Harry once more. “Will you come and sit down so we can discuss it?”

In the end, Harry did, because his life had just become so surreal that he honestly couldn’t think of anything else to do.


	5. First Conversation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five--First Conversation_

"How did you find me?"

"I asked your parents, and they told me the truth," Draco said, looking around the kitchen as Harry set a cup of tea in front of him.

It really was a shabby little place, so small and dim and, well, unmagical that Draco felt a spasm of surprise. A lot of Squibs made a point of surrounding themselves with the refuse of the world that had tossed them out, as if they wanted to remind everyone of their origin. Draco had assumed Harry would be the same way.

_But then, he's not really a Squib, is he?_

No, he wasn't. The instant Draco had appeared in the flat, he'd felt the powerful Dark magic lapping and eddying and flowing in all directions, so much so that he felt as if he was underwater trying to catch his breath. Harry sat down in the chair opposite Draco now and looked at him skeptically, and Draco sighed. The black tides of the magic were whispering around him now, drawing him further out to sea.

The Potters wouldn't have sensed it in the same way as Draco, of course, since they were Light wizards. But that left the question up in the air of what _Draco's_ parents had thought they were doing, refusing to bond their son to such a powerful mage.

"They hated the thought of what I became. They wouldn't just _tell_ you."

"There might have been some Veritaserum involved," said Draco, and sipped at his tea.

"You...why in the world would you do that?"

"You said you know something of what your sister's like." Draco waited until Potter grimaced and nodded. "Imagine having to marry her."

A grin so swift flashed across Harry's face that Draco thought abruptly, _I want to see him fly._ He controlled the impulse to ask, especially since Harry's expression was already cooling into a frown. "But I'm the one who made her that way. So I'd think you would be seeking me out to duel me."

"I have no idea why you think you influenced her that way. But I don't have to know the source of her personality to know I despise her. And I don't despise you. I'd like to give it a chance, see if we can suit and you can become a good consort to me."

"It wasn't me, precisely. It was the magic in me. But that's a bit like saying it wasn't me but was some disease I have. You still can't let me be around normal wizards."

Draco leaned in, watching carefully. There were the words, yes, but there were also the twitches at the edges of Harry's mouth, and the lines of his eyes, and...

"You don't believe that."

Harry gaped at him, and then snatched his pride back and went for a full-on glare. Draco returned it with interest, while parts of him quivered on the inside with delight. Yes, he had known that his potential consort was too intelligent to fall for the sorts of lies the Potters believed.

"I was too young to remember doing it! But it's not like my parents would hate me and send me away for _no reason._ If they say I corrupted Dahlia, that has to be the truth."

"Corrupted," Draco said, and made sure Harry saw every inch of the roll of his eyes. "No, perhaps your magic influenced her in an undesirable directions. _Perhaps_. That's not the same as corruption. And if it happened when you were that young, no one could have expected you to control it. Instead, they should have trained you, made sure your magic couldn't get out of control again. They sent you away. What idiots they are."

He saw the restrained toss of Harry's head, the way his mouth wrinkled for a second. He agreed with Draco. Part of him hadn't forgiven his family.

Pity it wasn't the part in charge of his mouth.

"You weren't there. You don't have a right to judge them. And anyway, it isn't my magic, it's Voldemort's--"

"It's powerful and intoxicating, I'll grant you that," said Draco, and ignored the blatantly amazed look Harry turned on him. "But that doesn't make it the same as Voldemort's. They should have trained you. They should have known, even if _some_ part of Voldemort survived after you destroyed him, that doesn't make it his magic. It makes it yours by right of conquest."

Harry sat as still as a toad trying to avoid a snake, except for his lips. Then he whispered, "I don't want to be a Dark wizard."

"That's the first stupid thing you've said. It's what you _are_. And you could have been using magic for years if people had had the training of you who acknowledged your power and taught you to understand it, instead of running away from the implications."

*

_I could be a wizard._

The notion was like magnesium lighting him up from the inside. Harry could feel his breathing speeding faster and faster, thinking of it. He could cast spells. He could feel a wand spark in his hand. He could go back to Britain and not shame his family--

And then he shook his head and closed his eyes. "Wishful thinking, Malfoy," he said, without opening them. "You only know a little. You haven't studied the situation the way Dumbledore and my parents and the Unspeakables did for eight years before telling me it was hopeless. You can't just say that I'd be myself instead of Voldemort resurrected and have me believe it."

Temptation. He would never have believed Malfoy could offer this terrible temptation. He had thought he would listen to Malfoy, joke with him a bit, and send him on his way, one more wizard who had some fashionable idea about something that could redeem a Squib.

But Malfoy's eyes blazed so brilliantly at him that Harry knew he wouldn't be simply going away. And after all, he was the one who had seen the resentment at Harry's family, buried so deep that Harry hadn't met anyone else who had ever known about it.

"I want to know about these studies." Malfoy reached for the tray of biscuits Harry had, after more thought than he wanted to put into the matter, set out. "I want to know why they're so sure that you using a bit of magic would bring the Dark Lord back. And if that was true, he should have come back because you were using Parseltongue, you know."

Harry looked away. Honestly, he knew that. He had always tried to rationalize his use of Parseltongue, the way his mentor accepted it because she was a Parlsemouth herself, and the way he used it even when he didn't have to, to talk to snakes that had nothing to do with him. Now he made his living with it, so it couldn't be that bad, could it?

"Harry?"

"Yeah, it's active magic," Harry said, and ended up speaking it in a whisper. He had never thought he would be so reluctant to speak about this. Then again, it wasn't like he had expected anyone to come along he _could_ talk to about it. "But it was one of Voldemort's talents, too. No Potter has ever been a Parselmouth. Doesn't that just prove I shouldn't use it?"

Malfoy's hand touched his suddenly. Harry started. When had the git crossed the room? "I think it proves that you've left yourself more of a crack than you think," Malfoy said into his ear, one hand wrapped around Harry's and his body leaning over until Harry could smell the faint scent of his robes. "That you can use magic, and you know it, and you make exceptions for a few talents. You can make exceptions for the rest."

"If they do turn out to hurt people?" Harry tilted his head back, even though he knew he shouldn't, to meet Malfoy's eyes. They shone blue-grey and a mixture of other colors, cloudy and close.

"Then we deal with that when the time comes. But the time can't come until you lose the fear your parents tried to instill in you."

Harry was quiet for a moment, studying Malfoy. Malfoy studied him back, so open and evaluating Harry felt his face turn pink. He swallowed and blurted into another question to stop the staring. "What happens if you spend all this time trying to help me and then I decide I don't want to be your consort?"

Malfoy smiled, and Harry felt his breath catch. Maybe it was just that he hadn't seen the smile from this close before. "It's up to me to make sure that you want to spend your time with me," Malfoy said, and his voice was low and close, too, and one hand came down, and he traced his fingertips slowly up Harry's wrist and arm. "My fault if you decide against me."

Harry's world narrowed down, for a second, to the sensation of a hand on his where no one had touched him before. Then he shook his head and sat calmly back. "All right. So you want to make a bargain? My willingness to consider your offer for your help in accessing my magic?"

"An honest offer on both sides," Malfoy said, and his breath was gentle and made Harry think of things he hadn't thought of before, in relation to anyone. "If you really want to consider it, both things, then I'll take the time."

Harry closed his eyes. "I need an answer to one more question."

"What's that?" Brush, brush, brush of his fingertips.

"What makes me so much better than Dahlia? You at least _know_ what she's like. You don't know me at all. There could be something about me that disgusts or bores you just as much, so you don't want to stay with me after all. Why take the chance, the investment of your time and effort, instead of trying to persuade your parents to let you bond with someone more to your liking that you already know?"

*

It was a fair question. Draco knew he would have applauded it in his right mind. If Father had been on Draco's side about getting a consort instead of simply marrying Dahlia Potter, he would have applauded it, too.

But it was hard to remember why it was a sensible question with his head full of Harry, the scent of him, the flutter of his eyelashes, the way his voice trembled a little, almost unnoticeably, when Draco touched him. Draco had assumed without thinking that Harry would be a cynical, experienced man, raised away from pure-blood society as he'd been, without wizarding manners.

Instead...

_He's wonderful. And probably a virgin because he probably feared that he'd lose control of Voldemort's magic in a moment of passion._

Draco forced himself to remember what was fair and sensible, not simply what he wanted, and answered calmly, without taking his hand away from Harry's arm and wrist. "I was willing to take a chance in the first place because you have no _idea_ how much Dahlia bores and disgusts me. And I know I probably wouldn't be able to persuade my parents to take a chance on anyone else I knew, no matter how pure-blooded or proud. It's a matter of family honor.

"Then I saw you, and realized you fulfilled some of my criteria. Handsome enough, powerful enough, magical enough if you can grasp your power--"

"You realize that it's very unlikely to have children with a Squib consort at all, simply because they can't muster the magic that you need to brew the child in the first place?"

"You realize that you're not a Squib?"

Harry tilted his head and finally opened his eyes again. Merlin, they were _green._ "Not in the technical sense. But it might be a sense that would still get in the way of us having children. I want you to realize that."

"I took the chance despite not knowing. I have no fears anymore."

Harry half-smiled and reached out to grasp Draco's hand. "Then what do you want?"

"A period of time to get to know you. To court you." Draco reached down and drew out the glass bonding bracelets, turning them over so Harry could see them. "To persuade you to accept your rightful one of these."

Harry's eyes flickered hard with an emotion Draco couldn't decipher, but thought might be desire. And why not? Draco wasn't an unreasonable partner himself, and was holding out the key to a future Harry had always wanted: wizarding power certainly, and probably marriage, love, and a family.

"Promise me something."

"I won't rush you."

Harry shook his head and looked up. "Not that. I want you to promise that if you get to know me, and there's something about me that really does hurt you or make you want to back away, you'll do it. You don't deserve to be saddled with someone you don't want for the rest of your life because of what _I_ want."

Draco caught Harry's hand and kissed the back of it. "Just that request tells me more about what kind of person you are than I've got from Dahlia in the eight years I've really known her."

Harry stared at his hand and then up at Draco as if he couldn't believe that Draco had just done that. Then he nodded, hesitantly, and said, "Well. If you're that determined."

"I am." Draco leaned back, thought about not saying the thing on the tip of his tongue, and then spoke it again. "I am, and I think you need to know that I won't change my mind even if it turns out that you had something to do with Dahlia's personality shift."

"I could do the same thing to you."

"No. I am neither a Light witch nor a child."

"But since I don't know what I did to influence her--"

"We'll figure it out together," Draco said, and his voice was firm enough that this time, Harry quieted and stared up at him. "You're used to fending on your own. I can see that. I don't expect it to change right away. But you might as well know that you have an ally in your corner who is not going to abandon you."

*

Harry couldn't get his breath.

It was different from the kind of breathlessness he had felt when Malfoy first Apparated into his flat, and different again from the kind he felt when he got a letter from his family. It was--the feeling he'd got, maybe, when he realized that M.H. had followed him thousands of miles just for someone to complain to and praise him.

_Just for the pleasure of my company._

"You would be willing to help me get my magic back no matter what? Even if we end up not liking each other, or it ends up costing you your contract with Dahlia?"

"That's a _cost_ I would be more than willing to pay," said Draco, his eyebrows arched as he stared at Harry. "But yes. You need a lot of reassurance."

Harry flushed, he knew it, but he held Draco's eyes and spoke the truth. "I'm not used to being able to trust anyone who isn't a snake."

"Promise _me_ something, in return."

Harry nodded, although he felt he had to speak a word of caution. "I can't promise to teach you Parseltongue. I've never managed to teach anybody."

"That's because Parseltongue is a magical _gift_ that you either have or you don't. It should have its proper level of respect." Draco hesitated, then leaned forwards and held Harry's eyes. "No, I want you to promise that you won't forgive your family in front of me. Maybe you will, when you go back to them in all the glory of your magic and they receive you the way they should. But I don't want to hear about it."

Harry laughed, with all his breathlessness behind it, and stood up suddenly, forcing Draco back a pace. He'd barely had time to narrow his eyes when Harry caught his hand and wrung it.

"I can promise you that I never will," Harry said. "The last thing on my mind is _forgiving_ them after what they've done to me."

Again they were close, and Draco searched Harry's eyes for the reassurance he needed himself before he smiled, inclined his head, and said, "Very well. Then I think this is the beginning to a profitable alliance."

A second time he kissed the back of Harry's hand, and this time Harry listened to, even embraced, the tingles running through his body. If Draco could give him back his magic, this was more than worth it, whatever strange consort arrangement he might want from Harry in return.

If he couldn't do that, that might not matter. Not against the feeling of having someone human in his corner.

 _He at least cares about me being able to exercise my magic. There's at_ least _that._

And holding Draco's eyes...

_This could be a lot more than that._


	6. Wedding Preparations

Draco arrived back in his room in time to see soft stars shining through the window. He snorted a little and shook his head. He had left night behind on the other side of the world, in Harry Potter's flat. It was odd to see it here again.

He didn't know if he would be able to sleep any time soon, however. His chest was burning with exhilaration.

Smiling, Draco undid the slightly formal robes he'd worn to see Harry and reached for a more casual set. He had made a major step in convincing Harry to let Draco court him. In the meantime, Draco would start to think about what kinds of information and money and gifts would be appropriate for that courtship.

Someone knocked briskly on the door. Draco turned with a frown. His parents and the house-elves would usually simply appear. "Come in!"

The door swung open, and Dahlia stood framed in it. Draco blinked at her and tried to resist the urge to groan as she swept him a curtsey and moved into the room, looking around with eyes wide with awe, although she'd seen it before.

 _She_ wore a set of robes even more formal than she had the night of the ball when Draco had learned about the contract with Harry, and she had little mincing graceful steps, and she had a wrapped box in her hands. Draco finished buttoning his own robes, wondering what in the world she thought she was doing.

"Draco," she whispered. "Your mother mentioned to me that she thought you were reluctant to continue our betrothal." She raised her eyelashes and gave him what she probably thought was a melting glance, but it only contrasted badly in Draco's head with Harry's fiery, direct gaze. "Please accept this gift if I have offended you in any way." She held the box out. The wrapping shimmered a sharp scarlet.

Draco looked directly at the gift and said, "You didn't offend me in any way."

Dahlia seemed not to understand for a second. Then she said slowly, "You refuse my gift?"

"You didn't offend me."

Dahlia pulled her hand back to her side, staring hard at him. Then she said, "Why did your mother think you were reluctant to continue our betrothal?"

"Mothers believe silly things about their children sometimes." Draco smiled at her, still so singing inside from his meeting with Harry that he could find it in himself to be nice to someone he despised. "You wouldn't want to jeopardize our betrothal and insist that I accept a gift when I hadn't offended you, would you?"

Dahlia pushed a shiny strand of red hair behind her ear and said slowly, "No...no." But she still seemed disturbed, and after a moment of pondering, she blurted out, "Why don't you like me?"

Draco paused. He had tried numerous times before to get an opinion or a preference out of Dahlia, and she had never obliged. But perhaps she had been disturbed enough by Narcissa's words to figure out the real problem. Draco _didn't_ like her. He didn't want to marry her.

_Perhaps she can make it unnecessary to go behind my parents' backs._

"Because you don't speak up very often," Draco said. "I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know what you like. I don't know what _you're_ really like. I feel like I know more about Lilac than I do you, and I'm not even betrothed to Lilac."

"I like what you like."

"But you don't like the idea of my not marrying you."

Dahlia appeared utterly stumped by this. She stared at him some more, and then looked down at her sleeve, as if she thought wearing a different color of robe or slightly longer lace would make him change his mind about her. Her voice was barely a thread. "I don't."

"See? But ultimately, it is our choice to make. It would be hard to have an impact on family honor, but if your family ended the contract..."

"Why would they? I love you. I want to be with you."

While that declaration was the most feeling he'd got out of Dahlia in all the years he'd known her, even this was oddly blank, Draco thought. Her eyes had a sheen to them, but it was still the sheen of a doll's. She studied Draco as if she assumed that he would rush over and put his arms around her now that she'd expressed _an_ emotion.

"I want a betrothed who can answer me with more conviction than that. And without being prompted."

"I'm the betrothed you have."

If Dahlia had snapped those words, or stamped her foot, or folded her arms, or tossed the gift at him and left, it wouldn't have changed Draco's mind about preferring to bond Harry, but it would have made him respect her more. Instead, she stared at Draco with those eyes, and stood motionless, the gift still clasped in her hand as if she assumed Draco would reach for it in a minute.

"What's the thing you want most in life?"

"To honor the contract. To marry you."

Draco shook his head slowly. "You don't want anything else? We would be married for far longer than you've lived with your family. What do you _want_ out of this marriage, Dahlia? Why do you want to be my wife when I've already told you I don't like you much?"

There was a splintering crack across the sheen in her eyes, so deep that Draco could almost see it. She stared at Draco, and opened her mouth a little. Her eyes were bright with fear that Draco knew would probably be panic in someone else. But Dahlia's emotions were so muted this was the best she could manage.

_It's my fault. I influenced her._

_You did not,_ Draco snapped back at the imaginary Harry, and smiled a little at Dahlia. "You don't have an answer. I don't think you've exactly thought about this much, for all that you're telling me this is what you want to do."

For a second, she did seem like she would snap, maybe demand what he wanted when she was telling him her preferences. But then she drew her breath in and straightened up with a slow smile once more. "It's _you_ who haven't thought of what would happen if you breached the contract, Draco. I know it seems like you have, but you haven't really. What's more important than family honor?"

For the first time in eight years, Draco felt something like pity for her. "Happiness. My happiness. What about yours? Are you _sure_ that you would be happy in an arrangement like this?"

Dahlia gave him the fleeting, wounded look of a terrified animal. Draco nodded and started to speak, because he thought he was finally getting through, but Dahlia promptly smiled and straightened up again.

"You haven't thought this through at _all_ ," she said. "I know my only happiness can come through marrying you. I've been in love with you since I was seven years old. Maybe you didn't know at the time. Maybe you thought I was just a little girl. But it's time to face that I'm old enough to marry you and nearly old enough to be your wife in truth, Draco. It's time to grow up."

"Time, indeed," Draco said a little sadly, because he knew the last traces of interest in her would probably leave him now, and drew his wand.

Dahlia stood still and gazed at him meltingly, as if she thought utterly trusting him would be enough. Draco moved his wand negligently, and her eyes rolled back in her head as he _Obliviated_ her.

"You came to me to discuss wedding plans," Draco whispered. "As far as you remember and will tell my mother, you found me willing, even eager, to marry you as soon as possible."

Dahlia blinked, came back to herself, and nodded to Draco with a placid face. "I hope that my gift meets with your approval," she said, and set it aside before she walked out the door. Draco sighed. He knew she had the kind of mind that would construct material to fill the blanks, to convince herself she'd had a pleasant time with her betrothed, because she wouldn't allow herself to think otherwise.

He hadn't wanted to use the Memory Charm on her, but what could he do? Even this new surge of personality had only come about at the command of his mother, who would have to be dealt with carefully.

Draco shook his head. He had someone in mind he could barely _envision_ obeying his parents, even if the Potters had still been close to Harry.

The memory of the fire in those green eyes charred his guilt away.

*

Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes. At least he'd managed to cure the ball python, and then the chameleon someone brought in who was off his food, and it had been a simple matter, not even needing Parseltongue, to help repair a lizard's broken leg.

But his scar had been writhing all day, as if the last remnants of Voldemort knew Harry might be close to freedom from him and were going mad.

_Tell me what you are thinking._

Harry blinked and glanced at M.H., who had decided he would rather have scraps of beef today than a fuller meal. "What do you mean? You don't usually want to know what I'm thinking unless it's about you." He chopped the beef one more time and wrapped it up gently in the tortilla. When he was tired, this was the most complicated meal he was capable of making.

_Tell me what you are thinking._

"I'm tired. And Voldemort's acting up."

 _Your Malfoy said that this Voldemort does not exist._ M.H. twined around his ankles. _That it is a lie and the magic is yours._

"But Malfoy has only known me a little while," Harry said, although part of him was frankly stunned that M.H. had said that much in a way that was neither question nor command. "He can't know more than my parents do."

_Tell me why they would know you._

"They knew me for ten years as a baby." Harry stomped to the table with his plate, blinking back something hot and furious that felt a lot like tears. It _shouldn't_ , but it did. Normally, he didn't worry that much about his parents and the way they'd rejected him. "They could tell how dangerous I was and what kind of magic I had."

_Hatchlings do not always show all their magic, or all their danger._

Harry sat down and stared at M.H. He was sniffing the table leg with his tongue the way he sometimes did when he thought it might have transformed into meat overnight. "What _is_ making you so talkative? You don't care about people like this, normally."

_Tell me what I said I wanted when I came to you all those years ago._

It was only two years, but Harry didn't feel the need to argue the point right now. "Someone to praise you and take care of you and keep you company. Someone you could talk to." He ate a few bites, not looking away from M.H.

_Tell me what else I said._

Harry scanned his memory, but ended up shaking his head. "I really don't know. That's all I remember."

 _I said I wanted someone powerful,_ M.H. once again said, without a demand. _Someone who could use his strength to impress other snakes._ He wound himself around the clawed foot of the table, moving until almost everything but his head was wrapped up. His eyes glinted at Harry in a way they never had before. _You agreed to that, perhaps without much thought. You have not kept that side of the bargain._

"I heal other snakes! That impresses them!"

_It is not enough. You do not do it through magic. If you have a chance to become more powerful because your Malfoy thinks you can, you will take it._

Harry swallowed a little more beef, and thought about that. He honestly didn't remember the conversation M.H. was talking about, but he didn't think the bushmaster was making it up. He'd never shown the inclination to do that before.

It would be uncomfortable living with M.H. and continuing to insist that his magic came from Voldemort and was evil. Or saying it was evil, anyway. Draco seemed comfortable with the idea that it came from Voldemort.

_Which is bizarre._

Then again, Harry didn't actually know details about what Draco was like. Lily had never said much about him in her letters, James and Sirius even less. All Harry really knew was that he was blond and handsome--that was mostly from Lily--and he was going to marry Dahlia, and his family was the sort that would be offended to find one of them would have a Squib brother-in-law. So Harry had stayed away.

_Not that I ever intended anything else._

But whether Draco was the sort to be scared of a dead-and-gone Dark Lord, or to seek someone else out if Dahlia bored him, or cruel, or kind, or proud, or meek, Harry hadn't known. He had to go with the impression in front of him now.

 _Proud, of course. I suppose I could have guessed that much from him being a Malfoy._ Harry ate a little, and smiled a little. _But not the others. If he didn't come to make sure I wouldn't attend his wedding, I would have thought he wanted to gape at a Squib._

There was a sharp _crack_ in the center of the kitchen, and Harry started back and dropped beef on the floor. He blinked as he watched Draco stroll towards him. M.H. stayed coiled around the table foot and seemed prone to ignore them both.

"Hello," Draco said, with a faint smile that made Harry flush. He held still as Draco reached out and brushed his hand over the lightning bolt scar. It writhed again, but Draco didn't pull his fingers back. He only looked at it, nodded, and sat down on the other side of the table.

"Should you be leaving to come over here this much? Won't your family miss you?"

"I told them I would spend a few days at my friend Blaise's, and his mother and mine have a cordial hatred. They'll owl me before they Floo me. And my mother thinks I'm sulking about the wedding. She won't be surprised if I don't talk to her for a while."

Harry nodded slowly as he sipped the cup of water in front of him. "So you want to spend a few days...here?"

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"My couch isn't suited for you to sleep on."

"I can Transfigure it with no problem. Or share your bed."

Harry felt himself flush and flinch at the same time, and M.H. hissed in what Harry knew was amusement. He refused to look away from Draco's knowing eyes, though. "I think you should Transfigure the couch."

"Very well." Draco didn't seem put out. He reached into a pocket of his robe and took out a book that Harry thought looked as if it might crumble like a biscuit. "When you're ready, look at this. It's about what happens with magic won by conquest."

Harry let Draco put the book in the middle of the table and leaned over to look without touching it. It was soft, and green, and old, and when Harry flicked the cover open gingerly, a part of the first page _did_ fall off. Draco waved a hand before Harry could apologize, though. "I actually copied the book in my parents' library. The copy is always inferior to the original. You should still be able to read it, though."

Harry nodded and read his way through the first three paragraphs. They were boring enough that he had to keep his eyes from crossing. They also used enough wizard terminology that he didn't know, he honestly wasn't sure what he was reading.

"So," he finally said, slowly. "It means that when you conquer another wizard and kill them via powerful magic, their magic belongs to you?"

"There are other circumstances. They have to die of a spell they cast at you backfiring, and there have to be no other wizards around who could absorb it themselves, and so on." Draco shrugged. "But yes. There's no ghosts hanging around. Those conquered wizards aren't still alive and able to possess you, either. Voldemort's magic is yours."

Harry closed his eyes. "There's no way _this_ could backfire?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I really let Voldemort out of control the way my parents were afraid of..."

"They should have supported you anyway," Draco snapped, loudly enough to make Harry open his eyes in shock. "They should have done something to contain Voldemort's magic earlier, or block it, if they were that worried he would come back. You don't ask _your son_ to sacrifice everything that he could be, everything he _should_ be, because you're worried about it. That's insane. I think your parents must not have liked you very much in the first place. Or maybe they thought you were too much of a problem to deal with after you conquered Voldemort and shunted you off to the side because of that. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. They did something wrong. You don't have to worry about what they think."

Harry sighed. "I still have to worry about hurting people."

"Not when I'm here. I know a lot more about magic than you do. I could stop you from casting any spells you don't mean to."

Harry felt his muscles relaxing from his fiercely-held tension. "You could, couldn't you?" he murmured in wonder, and Draco smiled at him.

"Let's go into the bedroom," he said. "It looks like the emptiest room, and we'll shrink the furniture so it doesn't get damaged. Then we'll do some magic."

It felt like Harry had been waiting his whole life to hear those words, and to feel the way Draco took his hand.


	7. Mischief Managed

 

“You deserve a larger bed than this.”

Harry could feel his cheeks turning the color of a brick. He shrugged and tried to refocus Draco’s disapproving stare away from the bed. The last thing he wanted to do was think in those terms. “Well, this is the one I have. What magic did you want me to try first?”

“I was planning on wandless, but I wonder…” Draco’s voice trailed off, and he turned his wand around and offered the handle to Harry.

Harry blinked. “You would _let_ me?” He could remember finding his mum’s wand once, and the panicked look she had given him as she snatched it away.

“It might come to nothing,” Draco said, although the intensity of his gaze suggested he didn’t believe that. “Not all wands are compatible with all wielders. But of course I trust you with it. You’re not a Dark Lord, Harry.”

His hand glanced along the back of Harry’s, his fingers spilling up Harry’s knuckles and easing down to clutch his wrist. Harry swallowed, dizzy and half-shaking his head. He knew some of this was part of Draco’s determination to seduce him, and he wondered how much he could trust _anything_ that Draco said.

But the warmth in Draco’s eyes was real, Harry knew, whatever he was imagining from his touch.

Harry took the wand and gave it a quick wave. He didn’t think that much would happen, and nothing did—visibly. But there was a swift thrill up his arm to his shoulder, and Harry sagged a little, gasping.

Draco laughed. “You _can_ use it. I don’t know if that’s because I wanted you to be able to, or we’re naturally compatible, or because our magic is similar somehow…” He reached out and caught Harry’s hand again, drawing to his lips. “And I find I don’t really care about the reason.”

Harry’s head was thrilling and bounding in the same way his pulse was. He stared at Draco, and then tore his gaze away and focused on the wand. “What spell shall I try first?” he whispered.

Draco eased behind him and cupped his hands around Harry’s elbows, putting his chin on Harry’s shoulder. “I would say _Lumos_ , but I think your magic is worthy of more than that. Follow my movements.”

Harry tilted his head back, feeling the curve of Draco’s neck against his cheek, and the way his fingers moved gently across the wand and Harry’s. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I would be disappointed if you could be fooled so easily,” Draco breathed back, and Harry thought—he wasn’t sure—that he took the chance to kiss the side of Harry’s neck. “Now. Aim your wand at that ugly table at the side of the bed.”

“Draco…”

“Remember that I can repair it in an instant if you’re worried about it. Not that it deserves being repaired.”

Harry laughed a little, and Draco nodded encouragingly and aimed the wand. “Now think about the power that you have inside you, the rage that your family tried to deny you your heritage, and aim the wand at the table and follow the movements I’m tracing in the air. _Reducto_!”

Harry mouthed the word and let Draco guide his hands, but he had to admit he didn’t expect a lot of the spell. Thus he jumped badly when magic seemed to explode out of his chest and down the wand, hitting the table and blasting it to pieces so small that they looked as if they had coated his bed with a fine layer of dust.

“Did I do that, or did you?” Harry whispered, swaying on his feet from the shock. He thought he would have fallen if Draco hadn’t pulled him a little tighter against his chest. And even though that _might_ be self-serving, Harry was grateful for it right now.

“You did it. Didn’t you feel the magic that rushed through you? It was like a stream in flood. It neatly caught me and whirled me away, and all I was doing was standing here.” Draco sounded as dazed as Harry.

Harry shivered. “I suppose that I thought—well, that I was still a Squib. Or that I wouldn’t be able to summon the magic to the surface so fast.” He stared along the length of the wand at the blasted table. “And of course, I was always afraid of what would happen if I lost control of the magic.”

“What did you do when you had sex?”

Harry froze for a second, and felt Draco laugh against his neck. Harry said as calmly as he could, “You don’t need an answer to that question.”

“Of course I do. You’re going to be my consort.”

“That’s still open for debate.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Draco breathed, and his hands slid away from the wand to trail slowly across Harry’s knuckles and then curve around the undersides of his wrists.

“There are _two_ people here, one of whom can’t even do magic properly yet,” Harry snapped at him, and then drew away and tried to turn and hand the wand back to him. But Draco shook his head, holding up his hands, refusing to take it. Then he used one of his raised fingers to trace a tickling path down Harry’s earlobe, cheek, and neck.

“It’s something we need to talk about,” Draco said. “If you can trust me.”

*

_He didn’t expect the question? No, he didn’t expect the question._

That only increased Draco’s conviction that Harry was a virgin. He’d responded to Draco’s touches as if he knew exactly what they were, but he was still skittish in some ways, his fingers and pulse both jumping. He couldn’t seem to decide if he should relax and enjoy them or not. Most people who’d had a few partners knew whether they wanted to bask in it or push him away at once.

“Can you trust me?” Draco added, because Harry was standing there, immobile, his own hands raised, and his face so red that Draco thought it might burn if he touched it.

“I don’t know if I can trust you to respect my pace and go slowly enough when you apparently want sex.”

“I want you as my consort,” Draco said right away. He wouldn’t allow mistaken impressions like _that_ to stand. “That’s always going to be true—”

“Until I do something that scares you off, or you go back and decide that Dahlia looks appealing after all.”

“I’m never going to do the latter. I spoke with her recently, and she showed more emotion than she usually does. It didn’t _matter_ , Harry. You’re the one I want.”

Harry studied him with narrowed eyes. Draco resisted the temptation to cluck his tongue or roll his eyes. Harry had been told most of his life, and _thought_ most of his life, that he was a useless Squib. It only made sense that he would balk when someone told him differently.

Harry finally nodded. “But what’s with all the questions about sex?”

“Are you a virgin?”

Harry flushed so deeply that Draco thought he had seen lighter-haired Weasleys. Then he lifted his head and shook it a little. “That’s one of those questions you don’t have the right to ask.”

“Well, I think I should know how much I’ll have to teach my consort.”

Harry took a long step forwards, forcing Draco to drop his raised hands, which was exactly what Draco had hoped might happen. “I know enough to satisfy you. Okay? And that assumes that we’ll ever have sex.”

Draco blinked, thrown. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“You know very well that consorts only need to blend magic to have children. And if we can assume that I’m going to be magically powerful enough to do that, despite being declared a Squib most of my life, then it’s going to be possible. That doesn’t mean we have to have sex. We can get along and be bonded and all the rest without—”

“I don’t break honor.”

“You said. That’s why you’re going through with this in the first place, to find a Potter to bond with that will mean you don’t have to break the contract—”

“And that means I wouldn’t cheat on you, either,” Draco continued, his voice bland to hide his growing fury. “Neither am I willing to live the rest of my life without sex or love.”

Harry paused, and cocked his head. “All right. I can see what you mean when you put it like that.”

“You’re _infuriating_ ,” Draco said, and stomped closer to him so he could glare at Harry. “What convinced you? Logic?”

Harry’s nostrils flared, but he continued on, “You asked me a question once before, about what I did with Voldemort’s magic when I lost control in a moment of passion. And the answer is, I don’t know. Because I’ve never _had_ a moment of passion with anything but my right hand.”

“Is that so? I took you for left-handed when you wank.”

Harry stared at him, mouth a little open—and then began to laugh hysterically, precisely the reaction Draco had wanted. He sagged onto the bed and kept laughing. Draco hesitated once, because this was where he had no plans, and then followed him down.

He lay beside Harry and stroked his hair out of his eyes. Harry kept laughing until he noticed Draco’s hand was on his face. Then he flinched and froze and stared. Draco just kept stroking, leaving it up to Harry to decide what he wanted to do about it.

Harry shut his eyes and waited for something Draco had no idea about. Draco kept stroking. Until he received a denial, he wanted to keep touching his consort.

*

_God, I want to._

Harry could feel the blaze in him, tugging at him, insisting. He’d been _alone_ for so long, and he had sometimes despaired of the thought of spending more and more years of his life alone, except for M.H. Sometimes he’d even been glad when he remembered that Squibs aged more rapidly and didn’t live as long as real wizards. It meant less time being lonely and envying other people.

But now he had the chance. And the way Draco reclined next to him, and _touched_ him, and stared at him with heated eyes…

But Harry still didn’t trust him enough to relax fully in front of him. Not to mention that he didn’t know if they might have something to fear from his magic exploding outwards in, well, passion, even if that magic wasn’t Voldemort’s. He’d never been in bed with someone else for even this long. He didn’t want to hurt Draco.

“Not right now.”

Draco shifted, and drew Harry’s attention to his erection. Harry winced. He’d managed to ignore his own because he’d had practice at it, but this was something new. And if any more blood went to his face, he wouldn’t have enough left to be hard, anyway.

“Are you sure?” Draco’s voice was so low that it was hard for Harry to make out his words, like hearing a huge bass booming from a distance.

“For right now. Yes.” Harry drew the second deepest breath of his life—the first was when his parents had told him they were sending him away—and sat up.

Draco followed him up, eyes so intent it was like stepping on nails to keep watching him. Harry turned his head away, but was in time to hear Draco whisper, “Thank you for trusting me as much as you have. And for making it right now instead of never.”

Harry didn’t flush any more than he had, luckily. He reached out, hesitated, and then clasped Draco’s hand. Draco bent down to rest his head on their joined knuckles, and closed his eyes.

Harry almost hated to disturb him, but his scar was twitching and the magic he had thought of as evil for so long was buzzing around inside him, and he _really_ wanted to use it. “Do you think we could cast some more spells?”

“Of course.” Draco stood up and moved behind him again. This time, although Harry knew perfectly well what his ulterior motives were, he rather welcomed it. He tilted his head back and let it rest on Draco’s shoulder briefly.

“Thank you for respecting me enough to stop.”

“I want to seduce you. It’s hard to seduce someone when they’re inspecting you as if you might have worms on your fingers.”

Harry laughed, and really _relaxed_ for the first time in what felt like hours. Then he let Draco firm his hands around the wand again. “What spell are we going to try this time?”

“The Blasting Curse uses a great deal of power, but it’s mostly raw. Let’s see how much finesse you might have.” Draco turned the hawthorn wand Harry was holding, and _he_ was holding, so that it aimed at one of the blankets Harry often used. “We’re going to Transfigure that _thing_ into a bird.”

“What’s the matter, Malfoy, never seen a blanket before?”

“That _thing_ is torn at the corners.”

“It’s big, and warm. What more do you want?”

“Some degree of _finesse_. Repeat after me, Potter. _Diffingo columbae_!”

There was a rippling motion in the air when Harry said the words, and the blanket began to grow smaller and whiter as he watched. Draco stroked along his hand, but this time, Harry was more focused on the magic moving through him, and out and down the wand. _His_ magic. It still made his scar twitch, which was weird and not something he liked, but on the other hand, it no longer felt alien.

_Was it as simple as this? As simple as using it?_

Maybe it had been, Harry thought, as he watched the blanket change into a dove, which looked around with startled eyes and then beat into the air and towards the door. He’d never dared do it because it might mean hurting someone else, but…

Now he was doing it, and it was _wonderful_.

They turned to watch the flight of the dove—which didn’t continue long. M.H., who had been asleep in the corner of the bedroom the last that Harry knew, snapped his head up and gaped his jaws and swallowed it.

“ _M.H._!” Harry snapped, ignoring the way Draco flinched behind him. He didn’t seem to believe Harry was some reincarnation of Voldemort, and Harry would keep holding onto that, no matter how many times Draco flinched at the Parseltongue. “You shouldn’t have eaten that! I had to change it back into a blanket!”

 _Tell me why it was there and tasty if you did not want me to eat it,_ M.H. said, and wreathed himself in a circle again, and composed himself for sleep. Harry yelled some more, in what might not have been good Parseltongue _or_ good English, but M.H. could be as deaf as any lizard when he chose to, and seemingly went back to sleep again. Harry took a step forwards with the notion of driving him out of the bedroom.

Draco caught his waist with one hand. “Why are you so upset, Harry?” His voice was an octave lower, which Harry thought was odd. “I thought you liked your snake?”

“He ate my bloody _blanket_ ,” Harry snapped over his shoulder. “I know you probably don’t understand, you grew up with silk sheets and house-elves, but I don’t have _money_ right now to buy another one as good as that!” He really felt like raging. Maybe Draco didn’t think the blanket was worth much, but it was his, and Harry had only agreed to the Transfiguration experiment in the first place because he’d assumed he’d get it back.

“Harry.” Draco pulled him in and draped his arms over Harry’s shoulders and sighed against his cheek. “I can buy you all the blankets you want.”

*

Harry twisted around to stare at him as if he really didn’t believe that, which made Draco bristle all over again. The Potters were rich. They couldn’t even send Harry out into the Muggle world would enough _money_ to make him comfortable…?

Draco slid his hand over Harry’s stomach, deliberately not lowering it. Harry wasn’t comfortable with that right now, and Draco was going to respect his wishes. But he wanted to cradle him there, to hold the most vulnerable parts of him soft and safe.

_They were monsters. They didn’t deserve him._

“Oh,” Harry said at last, his voice subdued. So maybe he believed it, but he hadn’t _thought_ about it. He’d just assumed he was on his own even if the magic experiments went wrong.

Draco kissed his cheek because he couldn’t help himself, but then went on, “Do you realize how rare it is to get a Transfiguration like that right the first time?”

“Well, you helped me.”

_And I get a modest consort, too. Not someone who’s simply blank and doesn’t voice her opinions because she doesn’t have any. Someone who truly doesn’t want to brag about his abilities, even though he has them._

Draco was one of the luckiest men in wizarding Britain.

“And you’re still strong, and it’s _your_ magic, not Voldemort’s,” Draco said, shifting his hand away from Harry’s stomach and stroking his throat instead. He wondered if Harry had noticed yet how hard Draco was from hearing him speak Parseltongue, or if he just assumed Draco was hard from earlier. “It’s remarkable. There’s no doubt now that you can use the magic, and for what you want to. If it was only Voldemort’s and only obeyed his will, I doubt it would have Transfigured the blanket into a dove. Probably some sort of beast with razor-sharp claws that would try to rip both our throats out.” He lowered his head so his lips were right next to Harry’s ear and whispered, “It’s yours.”

“Why do you think I can do this?”

“Honestly? You never had a wand and focused spells before. Maybe you could have done this all along, but your parents didn’t want to take the chance.”

Harry twisted around completely in his arms and said flatly, “You don’t have to make excuses for them. I already told you that I’m not going to forgive them.”

Draco could let his smile widen then, and his real emotions shine out of his eyes. Harry started a little, staring at him with his mouth open. Draco resisted the temptation to kiss him, and just whispered into his ear again.

“I’m glad. So glad.” Because he couldn’t leave it alone, he did have to add, “And I can’t wait for the moment when you want to be mine.”

Harry blushed for him, but he also reached up his hand and clasped his fingers around Draco’s, as firm as a promise.


	8. Some of the Perils of a Malfoy

 

Draco opened his eyes slowly, frowning. He had gone to sleep well-satisfied last night, because he had persuaded Harry to let him share the bed after all. There had been warmth at his back and a hesitant hand over his waist that he had caught and pulled close to him, to show that Harry was welcome.

It didn’t make sense, therefore, that he would have woken up with a chill in his stomach _and_ at his back. But when he rolled over, he saw why. There was no would-be consort in bed with him.

Draco forced himself to use the little Muggle bathroom and even conjure a toothbrush and clean his teeth, to keep from stalking out straight away to the drawing room where he knew he would find Harry. But there was still a hint of a stalk in his stride when he walked out and stood with his arms folded between Harry and the grimy little window that was letting in light already.

Harry stirred quickly, more so than Draco would have thought he could when curled under a blanket as ratty as this one. Draco cocked his head. _Blankets are on the list I’m making._

“Draco?” Harry tried to shield his eyes to see him and conceal a yawn at the same time. It didn’t work well. “Whass’ the matter?”

“Did you need to do that?”

Harry shot up and gave him a ruffled glance. “As a matter of fact, I _did_. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided that I wasn’t comfortable that close to someone else, and I was going to come out here—”

“It’s not _that_ I’m angry about,” Draco interrupted, a little incredulous, and a little sad, and a lot inclined to blame the Potters. “I told you that you should feel free to express your discomfort if I was moving too fast.”

Harry paused. “Then what are you angry about?”

Draco knelt down next to the couch, so Harry was the one looming above him. He reached out and slid his hand gently down Harry’s cheek. “Why didn’t you wake _me_ up and ask me to come out here, instead of doing it yourself? I could have Transfigured the couch and conjured myself blankets to be more comfortable.”

Harry frowned. “Um.”

“The truth, please, Harry.”

“It didn’t occur to me.”

Draco sighed. It probably hadn’t, and he would be hard put to it, or might, to make Harry understand. He sat back and eyed him. “I know that you’re used to taking last place.”

“What the hell does _that_ mean, Malfoy?” Harry was sitting all the way up now, and Draco had to bite his lip, because his hair was standing out from his head like he’d been caught in a lightning storm and his shirt was ragged and rucked up on one side. “I’ll have you know I’m a _very_ good animal Healer. Reptile Healer. Because I can _understand_ them.”

“Not what I meant.” Draco held his hands up.

“Are you _humoring_ me?”

“No, explaining to you,” Draco said, and hurried on before Harry could demand an explanation that he might not want to give. “What I mean is, you’ve been told all your life that you’re a Squib and therefore not worthy of basic consideration. You need to wait until last, and then you can do some things, if they don’t bother anyone else. Your family put you last behind all their own children. They—”

“I couldn’t do magic, Malfoy. Or they thought I couldn’t. Of course they were going to put me behind the education of their wizarding children.”

Draco caught his hand and kissed it. “My parents, as much as I disagree with them about some things, would never have done that.”

“Oh, yes, because a traditional family like the Malfoys would be so _kind_ to a Squib born into their household.”

“Not what I meant,” Draco said again softly, tickling his fingers along Harry’s palm. At least Harry’s breathing was slowing down, and he looked interested, so Draco continued. “My parents would have made sure that you were a Squib, first. They would have found, like I did, that you weren’t.”

“As much as I want to believe you, Draco, I can’t. Because I’m sure they had the chance to examine me when I was a child. So why did they think I was a Squib?”

“I don’t know if they would have sensed the magic around you,” Draco said. “I didn’t _sense_ it, not the way I usually do with powerful wizards. It might have soaked deep into your core and needed time to rise to the surface again. Or perhaps your parents were already using repressing and repelling spells.”

“They don’t use them here!”

“No, but they probably did there, if they were so concerned that your magic came from Voldemort.”

Harry paused a second, then shrugged and said, “I don’t want to discuss that right now, anyway. We won’t know the truth until we get to Britain and ask them, probably.”

Draco felt as if triumph had liquefied his bones. _He’s considering it! He’s really, seriously considering it!_ He kissed Harry’s hand, a trace of lips above the central line in his palm, and Harry’s flush intensified.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Harry repeated, looking aside. “All right. So I came out here to sleep instead of waking you up to do it. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes, it does—”

“It doesn’t mean that I’ll always do things like that,” Harry said fiercely, and his fingers curled around Draco’s wrist. “But at the moment, I—well, I just haven’t lived the kind of deprived life that you think I have, Draco. With magic, yes, but I promise that I’ve treated myself well, and I eat well, and this place isn’t much but it’s better than it could be because I sometimes treat wizards’ pets.”

Draco looked steadily into his face and decided that he was right about at least one thing. Harry didn’t _feel_ as though he had lived a deprived life. Maybe feeling that way would have made him so unhappy that he wouldn’t let himself.

Draco would work on that, but for now, there was nothing to be gained by challenging Harry over it. He linked his fingers around Harry’s again, and tugged on them. “Come on. You should know _I_ won’t treat myself like this, however well it works for you.”

“So where are we going?”

“Out to eat.”

Harry grinned and shrugged and stood up, his Muggle sleeping trousers riding low on his hips. “I’ll have to get dressed, unless you _want_ other people to see me like this.”

Draco’s throat was as dry as a bone instantly, and he stared at Harry. The sharp spark in his eyes confirmed something. _He’s innocent, yes, in a way. But he knows exactly what he’s doing when he teases me like that._

“You have to,” Draco said, voice strangled, and refused to let himself regret the notion of going out to eat as he watched Harry saunter towards the bathroom.

*

Although Draco had never been in New York before, as far as Harry knew, he seemed to find his way to the wizarding section instinctively. And he led Harry down the main street, which was the only one he had been to before—it held some food shops he liked and some simple clothing places where he could find Muggle clothes with extra pockets spelled in—to the streets Harry had always been nervous walking before, because he was a Squib.

Harry stared like a tourist as he watched a revolving wheel of apples swoop in and out of various pots of honey, chocolate, and other dippings, depending on what the customer of that particular seller wanted. Other wizards were earnestly haggling over what Harry knew couldn’t be _real_ unicorn horns and blood, because they were banned here as much as they were in Britain, but they looked like it. And there was an impromptu contest underway between a small, tough breed of bull Harry didn’t know, with lightning crackling between its horns, and a young child who kept skipping out of the way with a laugh.

“You’ve never been here before?”

Harry shook his head silently and followed Draco through an arched brick doorway that stirred vague memories of Diagon Alley when he’d gone there with his parents. It led into darkness, at least for a second, and then the darkness dissolved and sunlight beamed down on them—thicker, richer sunlight than Harry had experienced before. They stood in a quiet little courtyard with olive trees and rills of running water around the stones. A man dressed all in green expertly bowed to them and led them further inside, to a table on a tiny island in the midst of all that running water.

Draco pulled out Harry’s chair for him, and he sat down, smelling and hearing the moss scrape under the chair legs as Draco pushed it back in. “How did you know this was here?” he demanded, tilting his head as Draco moved around in front of the table.

“Oh, I consulted a few books about this place before I left Britain.” Draco arranged himself across from Harry, and draped a napkin over his lap.

Harry would have asked what kind of restaurant it _was_ , that books in Britain were published about it, but the same man who had greeted them came back and said, “What is the desire of your heart?”

Harry stared at the man, confused stories playing in his head about something called the Mirror of Erised that Lily and James had seen at Hogwarts. But Draco didn’t miss a beat. “For something light and fluffy, sweet and filling,” he said, and then glanced at Harry.

Harry wanted to demand a menu, but he doubted he would get one. Instead, he shrugged and said, “I want something sweet and heavy.”

“It is our pleasure to serve you,” said the man, and clasped his hands, and vanished. It was Apparition, probably, but it was the most silent Apparition Harry had ever seen, if so. He blinked and turned back to Draco.

“Okay, what kind of place _is_ this?”

“A place of pure magic that was brought with a wizard who emigrated from England,” Draco said, and spent a moment blotting his mouth even though he hadn’t eaten anything. Then Harry saw the glass of pure, cold-looking water that had appeared. He sighed and reached for his own. Draco leaned forwards. “He wanted exactly what he always desired to eat, and nothing else. And a place that was beautiful to him. He created an enchantment that would keep this garden—the place he thought most beautiful—always the same, and the people who came here to work after he died bound the magic to themselves. That lets them work to fulfill the tastes of anyone who comes here to eat.”

“Okay,” said Harry slowly. “But why ask about tastes instead of ideal food?”

“Because they can fulfill them more easily.”

Harry had no idea if that was true, but ten minutes ago he hadn’t known this place existed. “All right. What is this called?”

“Heart’s Desire.”

 _Of course, ask a stupid question_ , Harry said, and leaned back in his chair as a plate floated past him, landing in the center of the table. It bore the largest piece of chocolate cake he had ever seen, ornamented with sliced and dried fruit. Well, “heavy” and “sweet” fit what he’d asked for, Harry had to admit. “What are we going to do after this?”

Draco smiled at him. “I’m going to take you to the shops and buy you _everything_ you want. A new blanket. Food for your snake. More furniture—a larger bed that we can both use.” Harry flushed as a plate holding a whip of cream and fruit and pieces of bread floated over in front of Draco, but there didn’t seem to be anyone holding it to react. “ _Clothes_. You need clothes that befit your new status.”

“Status?” Harry took a cautious bite of the cake. It felt as though it melted in his mouth with no flavor for a second, and then suddenly grew so wonderful that he gasped with his tongue out. Draco smiled at him and sat back to eat his own cream.

“As a Malfoy consort.”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

“Why would you refuse me?”

Harry deliberately set down his fork. He knew he could make an impression on Draco by refusing his gifts. “You said that you would help me find my magic no matter what. Whether I agreed to be your consort or not. That’s the only reason I’ve trusted you with as much as I have.”

“I still mean that,” Draco said, and he smiled at Harry in a way Harry already knew he would find hard to resist if he ever had to. “And I was joking as much as I was serious about your consort status. What matters is that you have the right clothes and the right accoutrements for your status as a newly-discovered wizard.”

Harry flushed. “Who even says _accoutrements_ anymore?” he muttered, and went back to eating his cake.

“Me. Have you thought about where you’d like to go?”

“You know wizarding New York better than I do,” Harry said stubbornly, determined to make Draco bear the brunt of this, since he wanted to do it anyway. “You pick.”

From the smile on Draco’s face, as devious as the shafts of sunlight that always sneaked through Harry’s carefully-closed curtains, that might not have been such a good idea.

*

Draco led Harry into the shop he knew, like Heart’s Desire, from descriptions published in Britain, and looked around curiously at the hanging curtains. They were of all shades, but strong blues and greens predominated. Draco wondered idly, for a moment, why a shop for clothes would advertise using curtains.

Then he wanted to hit himself. The “curtains” were silk and velvet and satin, when he looked more closely at them; there were even plebian ones made of wool and leather. This was as good a way to advertise fabric and color as any.

“You have enough money not to waste my time?”

Draco nodded to the woman who strode out from between two of the blue hangings and stood facing them. He had been warned to expect the blunt attitude, although the sharp American accent was a bit of a shock. “Yes. My name is Draco Malfoy and this is Harry Potter.”

The woman slowly raised her eyebrows. So she would keep up on news from England enough to recognize those last names, Draco thought. Then again, he had never known an unconnected fashion designer. “Very well. I’m Sarah, and you’ll listen to me and do what I say.”

“She doesn’t have to give _her_ last name?” Harry muttered as Draco led him past the hangings into a dazzlingly bright corner of the shop, the light concentrated by mirrors and the flare of lamps.

“It wouldn’t matter to us, because we wouldn’t recognize it,” Draco said, and wondered for a moment whether Harry looked dazed because his name _had_ been recognized. “What matters is her talent.”

“And I have plenty of that,” Sarah said, swooping back in at them. She was already carrying a heavy selection of deep-colored fabrics, and eyeing Harry as if she was a hawk and he was a limping rabbit. “No need to ask who you’re shopping for. Your robes look sharp enough to cut. He’ll want a whole new wardrobe, or only a few sets of clothes?” She made the fabric hang over them like a tent canopy with a swirl of her wand, and then flicked her wand at Harry in another spell.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Harry said, leaping as light swarmed all over his body under his clothes and then blew towards Sarah and formed numbers in the air. Draco snorted, recognizing the charm then. It would give perfect measurements in a moment, but no one used it in the shops he was familiar with. It was considered uncouth.

“No need to swear,” Sarah said. “At least, not at me. You should eat more, you know. I’ll have to tailor the robes so they don’t slump right off your skinny little shoulders.” She turned, straw-colored hair swaying behind her, and began to separate a skein of cloth from the rest, trimming it into a robe with much more dramatic gestures than Draco had ever seen Madam Malkin use.

“You don’t want to know what colors I like?” Harry demanded. He had his arms folded in a way that Draco thought he recognized already, despite not knowing Harry for very long. It made him step carefully out of the space between Harry and Sarah.

“No. You don’t have any taste, or you wouldn’t be wearing those tatters.”

“They’re Muggle clothes.”

They didn’t look terrible, Draco had to admit. They were worn, but clean, and he could appreciate the glimpse of Harry’s skin he sometimes got through a tear or an unraveling in the cloth. Still, they were nothing like robes, and he wasn’t sure how someone like Sarah would see them, with her eye for color and fabric.

“And you’ve outgrown them at least once, and used a Resizing Charm on them,” Sarah said, and gave Harry a glance that raked. “And cleaned them with charms, even though the fabric isn’t really built to stand up to such a harsh way of using magic.”

“You’re wrong. I’m a—”

“Wizard come late to his magic,” Draco interrupted smoothly. Harry wouldn’t get good service if referred to himself as a Squib. “That means he might have got someone else to cast the charms for him.”

“But they’ve still been used.” Sarah nodded and spun what at first looked like a simple thread out of the mass of cloth. Once Draco squinted at it, he could make out that it was a dark blue robe. “Try this.” She snapped her wand again, and Harry’s Muggle clothes simply disintegrated into a whirling cloud of sparks and dust.

“ _Hey_!”

Draco craned his neck despite his own better self to see if he could get a glimpse of what lay beneath Harry’s robes, but the one Sarah had crafted settled over Harry before Draco could see anything. Draco shook his head, relegated his disappointment to the ether, and stared at Harry gleaming in dark blue silk and looking pissed-off.

Merlin, Draco didn’t know what looked better, the way the blue robes brought out colors in Harry’s skin and hair he hadn’t known were there, or the way his eyes shone with anger, brighter than the silk.

“We’ll take two identical to that one,” Draco said. “And one in velvet. And let’s try him in green, too.”

“Not a green too near the shade of his eyes,” Sarah disagreed, and her wand began snapping again. “Otherwise that will only look odd.”

“Perhaps so,” Draco said, not all that bothered with the fact. Green had only been a suggestion. Sarah was the expert.

“Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No,” Sarah said.

Draco settled for shaking his hand and reaching out to stroke his hand across both Harry’s arm and his sleeve. If Harry thought he wanted a touch of the silk alone, let him think that.

Better, though, was the fact that Draco glanced over during his next argument with Sarah and found Harry touching the sleeve himself, as if he hadn’t managed to absorb the fact that it existed yet.

Draco smiled, an ache in his chest as though someone had punched him there. _I want to give him everything._


	9. Sprezzatura

“What did he say about you coming back with new clothes?”

Harry snorted and spent a minute arranging his robes in the wardrobe so that they didn’t smash some of his fussier shirts flat. Trust Draco to buy fussy shirts even when Harry had told him plain ones were _fine_.

“He said I should give him the old clothes to sleep on.”

“Of course he would. I’ve only known him a few days, but I’m coming to appreciate the way your snake thinks. And that would be a fitting fate for those Muggle rags that you were wearing when I showed up.”

Harry’s fingers curled into claws in the sides of the nearest robe before he could stop himself. Then he took a deep breath and turned to face Draco. Draco straightened up, head cocked, body radiating wary interest.

“Those clothes were the best I could afford. Please don’t call them rags. And of course I’m keeping them. When I go to my Muggle job—”

“But why would you want to keep that job? It obviously doesn’t pay you enough. And you’re going to have me now.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to rely on your money _all the time_.”

“But that’s what consorts do. It’s my privilege and honor to take care of you.”

Harry shook his head a little in response. “And what happens if this doesn’t work out? If you learn something about me that disgusts you? If your parents seize you when you go back to England and _Obliviate_ you the way you did with my parents? There are—too many things that could happen in the next little while. It makes me relying on you exclusively really stupid. I think you would agree if you were looking at this from the outside instead of the inside.”

Draco stared at him with his lips slightly parted. Harry looked back. He knew he might seem stupid, saying that kind of thing when he was standing next to the wardrobe full of expensive clothes Draco had just bought for him, but that was the way things were.

The way things had been for nine years, anyway. He’d been expected to fend for himself once his mentor died, and even when he’d received wizarding help to do things like ward his flat or get the necessary paperwork to look older than he was and practice treating reptiles in America, he’d done favors in exchange for it. Not just trusted someone the way Draco was suggesting he do.

So, yeah, maybe it was stupid or rude or backwards. But he did want to listen to what Draco had to say in response to it.

*

_He doesn’t have any reason to think that this will last forever._

Draco realized that quickly. He’d been treating Harry almost the way he would Blaise or Pansy, because it had been so easy to fall into that pattern with him. He trusted Harry, he liked him, he was attracted to him, he was angry but also proud of the way Harry had had to survive on his own with no help from the Potters. So he hadn’t thought a lot about what might happen if this all melted away, because _he_ knew it wouldn’t.

But Harry didn’t have the years of friendship with him that Blaise and Pansy did, which would have made this kind of reservation an insult. Draco nodded and walked across the bedroom to gently touch Harry’s cheek. Harry tilted his head back and looked up at him in intent interest, his head cocking a little to the side.

“I’m going to stay away from my parents’ house until we’re bonded,” Draco began, “to answer one of your concerns. I can promise you that I won’t give them the chance to _Obliviate_ me, ever. We’ll also be free to walk away from each other if we _want_ to. At the moment, I can promise you nothing is further from my mind.”

Harry looked at him skeptically enough that Draco didn't know whether to smile or be enraged that his parents had given him that kind of attitude. He settled for looking as kind as he could, and Harry finally nodded, slowly, and said, "All right. Have you considered that I might not be what you want?"

"You're exactly what I want."

"For the past three days. When we go beyond that--"

"I wouldn't ever step into a bonding this hastily unless it already felt right," Draco said, and winced a little. This was exactly the sort of information his parents would have told him never to give out, but he had to. He owed Harry this. "I would have watched you from a distance and tried to gather information about you before I approached you, if I had the _least_ inkling that you might not be the right consort for me."

Harry blinked, then blinked again. "So I have my--what? My face to thank for you not acting like a stalker?"

Draco controlled the impulse to snap back. Yes, he'd shared something personal and Harry wasn't reacting the way he'd hoped, but Harry had no idea how personal it was to him. "You have your whole story to thank. I was outraged by the way your parents treated you, and curious why no one ever told me I was betrothed to someone before your sister, and impatient to find out who you were. I had enough to approach you."

"Okay."

Harry seemed to be thinking about it deeply. Draco stepped back to the doorway to let him have his moment. He twitched to go over to the wardrobe and organize the new robes in a way that would make more sense, but Harry had already made it clear he didn't like the idea of Draco touching his clothes.

"Can we buy me a wand?"

Draco smiled. At least that _sounded_ like a peace offering. "Of course. Let's leave right now."

*

Harry cursed under his breath as he stepped into the wandmaker's shop, which was called Calliope's. The scar on his forehead had started dancing and writhing, and that was something Muggles could have caught, never mind wizards.

But the witch who was apparently the proprietor of Calliope’s, or maybe Calliope herself, only gave it a single glance as she approached him. Her eyes were wide with something that might be interest, and she nodded at Harry. “May I?”

“May you what?” Harry grumbled, rubbing his forehead.

Calliope—as Harry was going to call her until he got her real name—gave Draco a bewildered glance. Draco sighed a little. “Forgive him. He’s just getting his first wand after thinking he was a Squib all his life. Hold out your right arm,” he added in a stage whisper to Harry, which annoyed Harry _tremendously._

Harry did, while glaring at Draco all the while to let him know that Harry was doing it out of his free will, not because Draco had suggested it. On the other hand, since Draco simply looked delighted, that didn’t have the effect Harry wanted.

“Hm, mm,” Calliope muttered to herself, waving her wand over his arm and casting spells that didn’t seem to have any effect except a faint cool breeze on Harry’s skin. Harry eyed her dubiously in return. She looked to be maybe Lily’s age, but with lots of grey in her hair and a heavy scar around her wrist that might mean anything. “Well, I can feel a powerful reservoir of magic in you, but it’s untapped.”

“That’s what my—friend _said_.”

“Difficult one, aren’t you,” said Calliope, without sounding insulted. She walked behind her counter, and for the first time, Harry looked around her shop.

It was covered with cabinets and cupboards, all of them bulging as though they were full of ingredients for wands that only the locks kept from tumbling out. Harry raised his eyebrows a little when he noticed what looked like ordinary raven feathers dangling around one doorknob. He didn’t know of any wands that were made with such ordinary materials, instead of the ones from a magical creature, but he supposed it took all sorts.

Calliope followed his gaze and smiled. “I don’t think black phoenix feathers would be suited to you. It takes a lot of experience to bond with a wand that contains one of them.”

Harry blinked, and found himself smiling back before he thought about it. _I suppose I deserve that for assuming._

“Good,” said Calliope, and flicked her wand at his face in a way that made another small, cool breeze pass over his lips. “I need a picture of what you look like in at least two moods. That way, the wand will know who to bond with.”

“What are you doing with the spells?”

“Getting a sense of you with my own wand. Then I’ll pass it over the ones I have here, and if none of them respond to that sense, then I’ll try different materials and see whether you need a new one made…”

Calliope’s lecture turned fascinating. Harry followed her further into the shop, not worrying about leaving Draco standing by the door. He could feel those burning, faithful eyes locked on him all the way.

_Yeah, it was a good idea to have him bring me here._

*

Draco had his own ideas and reservations about the way that Calliope chose to do her work—Ollivander’s was very different—but he couldn’t deny the effectiveness, even as she cast spells of a weird sort and asked Harry strange questions.

It turned out that none of the wands in her shop suited him, after all. Calliope only shook her head with the cheerful smile of someone who enjoyed a challenge and turned to the first cabinet, opening it with a simple pass that didn’t look like an unlocking charm.

Draco started trying to predict to himself. What kind of feather, or heartstring, or hair, or wood, would Harry match with? Draco might have predicted unicorn hair, for his innocence, but he didn’t know if it was something Calliope used.

Then she pulled out a large wooden drawer that took up the entire inside of the cabinet and showed what she worked with, and Draco blinked.

_Yeah, definitely different._

“These are snow turtle shells,” Calliope explained, lifting out domes of what Draco would have thought was mother-of-pearl, except that it didn’t have quite the iridescent sheen. “They hide at the very bottom of the Arctic Ocean and breed there, and normally their shells turn a normal turtle color when they die, so Muggles don’t even know they exist. We can harvest them by taking them off gently when they’re ready to move into a bigger shell…”

“I thought only crabs did that.”

“That’s because you’ve spent too much time in the Muggle world,” said Calliope, voicing a thought Draco agreed with for very different reasons. Then again, he wasn’t about to admit that he’d never heard of snow turtles, either. “If you want to understand our magical world, you’ll have to spend more time here.”

“I can only do that if I have a wand.”

“That’s true enough,” Draco said mildly, the only contribution to the debate that he really intended to make.

Calliope gave him a scolding look anyway and faced Harry, lifting a piece of shell that was shaped and carved differently from the others. “My wand tells me that you can’t have one made out of wood. You’ve had magic dammed up in you for too long. Think about hot water that’s pent up. What happens if you let it go too fast?”

“It floods.”

Calliope nodded. “Your magic is like that. You need a material that can handle the spells and other things you’ll do with it, and not explode on contact.” She tapped the glimmering white shell with her wand, once again doing nothing to it Draco could see, and then held the curved piece out to Harry. “Here. Hold it the way you would a wand.”

Its curve was more extreme than any wand Draco had ever seen. He opened his mouth to object.

But Harry reached out and cupped his hand around it, and the silent pulse of magic that filled the shop was like sunrise.

Draco leaned back against the wall and shielded his eyes. Then he realized there hadn’t been an actual light. It only _felt_ as if he had been blinded, because the power was so intense. And Calliope wasn’t much better than he was, gaping at Harry.

Draco forgot about the pulse of magic and his possible objections to the shell as he looked at Harry’s face. Because _that_ was what had really been Transfigured, not the dimness of the shop.

*

Harry had felt his magic before, when he spoke Parseltongue or flew on a broom, and then when Draco had let him hold his hawthorn wand. But it had always been…muted. Or after a while, as with Parseltongue, he had stopped feeling anything at all. He had decided that was too detached from Voldemort for him to feel it.

This, though.

This was like tasting chocolate for the first time. Seeing the sun when he’d spent his life in darkness. Bathing in cold and clean water when he’d had to make do with a little dirty trickle.

It tore through him, and hovered around him, and Harry bowed his head over the curve of shell, because he knew even if someone was able to show up right then and tell him that his magic was Voldemort’s and here was proof, he couldn’t give it up. He’d been a Squib, he’d envied wizards, but he would have died of jealousy long since if he’d known it was like _this_.

And he couldn’t go back to what he’d been. Not even to protect other people from any infection of Dark magic he might carry.

“That’s the right wand material,” said Calliope softly.

Harry raised his eyes and cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“Now we need to find you the core.”

Harry kept hold of the hemisphere of snow turtle shell, stroking it, while he watched Calliope trail her wand over three other cupboards. She stopped in front of the fourth one and seemed to be listening to something, before she nodded and opened it.

Soft golden things tumbled out when she did. Harry blinked, thinking they were feathers at first, but Calliope laughed a little as she turned around and offered them on her hand. “Sun rattlesnake scales. They’re softer than any others. Sometimes they transition back and forth between snakes and birds. It would be a fair guess that you’re a Parselmouth?”

“Something you will _not_ reveal to anyone,” said Draco, dangerously and pleasantly. Harry started. He’d been so caught up in the search for a wand core that he’d honestly almost forgotten Draco was there.

“Of course not,” Calliope said, “if you don’t want me to. Most people don’t know what my wands are made of anyway, not if I need to make a new one. They’ll probably assume that it’s made of birch, not turtle shell. And from there, they have no reason to think anything unusual about the core.” She extended the palm full of sun rattlesnake scales to Harry.

Harry touched them, and shuddered. There was something brittle and flexible about them at the same time, as if he was holding curls of copper, but he could feel the way they bounced across his palm, and see the way they glittered brighter than lamps in a lonely house at night.

“It’s right,” Calliope said, watching him. “This wand will be made with a touch of fear. But somehow, I don’t think you mind that.”

Harry raised his head, and looked in Draco’s direction. “I used to,” he said. “But not now that I have someone to share the risks with me.”

*

Draco still felt the hovering warmth in the center of his chest when Calliope had almost finished binding the rattlesnake scale core to the turtle shell.

Harry would have a beautiful wand. It would still shimmer like pearls in the right light, although as Calliope had said, most people would assume it was birch. They simply wouldn’t look in the right direction or think about the right things.

That was fine with Draco. The more people _here_ who overlooked Harry, the more of a marvel left for him.

But when they went back to England…

Then Draco would arrange to let the nature of Harry’s wand slip in front of the Potters as soon as possible. Let them realize how unique he was. As he watched Calliope match another curve of turtle shell with the one she already had, and thread the scale through it, he inevitably always turned back to Harry, even though the wandmaking process wasn’t something he’d seen before or was likely to see again.

Harry’s face was the real wonder here.

And at last Calliope finished the wand, and placed it carefully in Harry’s hand.

Harry waved it, the way Draco had waved his wand in Ollivander’s shop so long ago, and all around him, the magic manifested again, visible this time as a soft glow that centered on Harry’s arm and forehead rather than the wand.

Calliope clapped her hands. Draco couldn’t help coming up and taking Harry in his arms, and if he had to change some of his Galleons for the smaller coins the American shops preferred, that didn’t matter.

He managed to keep Harry in the curve of his arm anyway.

They left the shop with Harry still shaking a little, staring at the wand he held, and then he looked up at Draco.

“Thank you. That was the best gift anyone’s ever given me.”

His face was alight again, and he already moved with a careless grace, taking for granted what he would have drawn back from and said was too much only a short time ago. _Sprezzatura_ , Draco thought, remembering a long-ago Italian lesson. The art of making something that took a huge amount of effort look effortless.

Harry had actually halted in the middle of the street, head tilted back to look up at him, and Draco couldn’t help himself. He bent down, and pressed his lips slowly to Harry’s.

If he thought he had felt Harry’s magic before…

It was nothing compared to what happened then.


	10. On the Edge of Change

Harry stood there with his lips frozen like a stone statue's, as Draco told him afterwards, and Harry had no better retort than asking if Draco went around kissing a lot of stone statues.

But it was so sudden, so unexpected, so strange a blossoming of warmth and yanking his attention away from the magic he'd been thinking about. Harry raised his hands, doubled them into fists, and rested them on the back of Draco's neck. He'd meant to hold him, but...

His mouth was occupying a lot of his attention.

Draco kissed him soft and then hard, his hands rising so one was on Harry's chin and one was on Harry's neck and he could basically turn him any way he wanted to position him. He was almost biting, leaning over as if he thought Harry would slither on the ground like M.H. to escape him. His voice was there only in soft, writhing groans and whimpers.

_He sounds miserable, even though he's kissing me._

Harry didn’t want Draco to sound miserable. He pressed closer, and lifted one leg before he thought about it, hooking it around Draco’s waist. That at least changed Draco’s sounds to ones of astonishment, and he tipped forwards and nearly landed them on the street.

Harry flicked his wand, not knowing what he was doing, only wanting to use his magic and hold them _up._ A second later, Draco’s hold on his mouth slackened and he looked down, laughing softly.

Harry did, too. A huge cloud of soft mist was holding them off the street, so brilliant a pink that it looked as though a new sunset was taking place somewhere beneath the stones. Harry sighed and let his head rest against Draco’s collarbone.

“I only wanted to not crash and hurt either of us,” Harry muttered.

“And you did better at that than I could have imagined,” Draco said, which sounded honest. His hand slid slowly up and down Harry’s back. He was watching the cloud with what looked like amusement, which made Harry relax. “However, I think you can put us down before we attract any more attention. Can’t you?”

Harry snorted and gave his wand another meaningless flick, meaning they ended up on their feet with the cloud melting away from beneath them. “I can hope not to _hurt_ us. However, I still don’t know very much wanded magic.”

Draco caught his hand and kissed the inside of Harry’s wrist over the vein, his eyes warm. “Then let’s go somewhere else and make sure you get the chance, hmmm? And that means we can try our kiss again, too.”

Harry caught his breath. He could feel some of the passerby who had walked down the street staring at them in amusement, and Calliope’s door was still open a small bit, meaning she was probably smirking at them from behind it. But Draco’s gaze managed to remain private, just for the two of them.

“Yes, let’s,” Harry said, and let Draco take and hold him to Apparate. It was more comfortable than what he would have done if he’d tried to Apparate them, anyway.

And thanks to Draco, he was learning to rate comfort higher than he’d done yet.

*

Draco waited until Harry had put his wand aside and talked to M.H., who sounded even more haughty and demanding than before. Probably about what this strange magical object was and why he had to share space with it, Draco thought.

His amusement was only a faint shadow before his buzzing need, though. When Harry rolled his eyes and turned away from the bushmaster, Draco stepped forwards and laid his hand on Harry’s shoulder, a heavy, warm pressure. Harry swallowed and glanced up at him.

“You can tell me to stop any time you want,” Draco whispered, which was still true. He wasn’t _interested_ in hurting Harry. “But I need…please, Harry.”

Harry was the one who reached for him with lips and hands. Draco staggered backwards a step, gasping, and Harry’s tongue dipped into his mouth, suddenly bolder than Draco had thought it would be. He tasted flickering sweetness all along his teeth, and they ended up against the wall near the kitchen door, holding each other and kissing until Draco thought he could feel Harry’s magic swirling around them again.

His senses burned as if he was standing outside near fireworks on a summer evening. Draco managed to move one of his hands so that he was cupping Harry’s head, and the other his back. It didn’t matter where he touched him. That same heat still burst out of Harry, his skin and his face and his hair.

It was magic, the untapped potential Draco had _known_ was there, finally reaching out.

Draco gasped as Harry reached down and got hold of his cock. _Other untapped potential coming out, too,_ he thought, and blinked dazedly, staring at Harry.

“I was going to ask you to take me to bed,” Harry murmured, pulling back with his lips and pupils both swollen, “but I think it’s the other way around.” He closed his eyes and acted as if he was concentrating for a second.

A powerful wind swept them away from the wall and spun them around. Draco flailed for a second, memories and images of the layout of the flat twisting through his head. He thought they would crash into the side of the kitchen doorway, or the door, or some wall somewhere—

Then he didn’t have to worry about it, because the wind lifted them straight off the floor and into the bedroom, and then dropped them on the bed. Draco sprawled there, only one hand still resting on Harry’s shoulder, blinking. Harry’s laughter swirled around him after a second like the heat and the magic had.

“I didn’t know I could do that! But now I can.”

That simple statement made Draco spin around on his knees, his body shaking with hunger as if he’d gone without a week’s worth of meals. Harry stopped laughing and gasped at him.

“I didn’t want to ask,” Draco said, between lips that felt numb. “Although I suppose I already asked, really. Out there. But now…” He held out a hand that shook so hard he was ashamed of himself, but then he thought about how he would feel if Harry didn’t take his request seriously, and his hand firmed.

“Ask…what?” Harry’s eyes were slow, blinking, as though he could understand what Draco was doing if he only blinked long enough.

Draco found he still couldn’t put it into words. Everything he knew seemed too bold or too crude. “Please,” was the only word that fit, and he said it a few times while Harry lay there and watched him.

Harry paused in a way that seemed to carry him into another dimension. Draco held tensely still, his hunger still eating at him, his need and his heat not diminished. He would understand if Harry refused, of course he would, but then he would have to go into another room and help himself.

Then Harry said, “Yes,” in a wondering tone, as if his answer had surprised him as much as Draco.

Draco didn’t bother pretending to hold back. He lunged at Harry, and knocked him flat, his legs rising up on either side of Draco, his bubbling laughter cutting off under Draco’s lips.

*

Harry had imagined, so many times, what it would be like to walk down the street hand-in-hand with someone, and sleep beside them, and wake up knowing that you were married for the rest of your life and they weren’t going anywhere. He’d never visualized a clear face. Hell, most of them hadn’t even been men or women. Just an impossible dream anyway, so why bother imagining a specific person?

But he had never imagined someone this desperate for him. And now that it was happening, he knew he’d never be able to imagine anyone but Draco in this role again.

Draco was kissing him with such intensity that Harry felt a sharp burn under his closed eyelids. He didn’t let the tears go, instead focusing on running his fingers up Draco’s shoulders. They were so hard, he thought in a dazed dream. The kind of shoulders he could hold onto when he felt as if something was going to blow him away.

Draco pulled back at last, but only when Harry’s lips had gone numb and he’d started to burn for air more than touch. For a few seconds, they stared at each other. Then Draco reached out and yanked pointedly on the pair of new robes Harry was wearing.

Harry stood up and removed it slowly, looking back over his shoulder at Draco. He hadn’t planned to tease him, but that was mostly because he’d never had an audience before.

Draco licked his lips and lay on his side, one hand tracing idly over his clothed cock. Harry nodded, unable to look away until he remembered he had buttons to undo and they were preventing him from getting to Draco.

When he finally shed the robes, Draco grabbed him and pulled him onto the bed again. They were squirming side-by-side now, Draco trying to sling his leg over Harry’s hip, Harry trying to get Draco’s cock on his.

Finally, they compromised when their groins touched and Draco’s entire body sighed, his eyes rolling back in his head. Harry tugged him flat with a grunt of victory and climbed on top of him.

From there, he realized that he had no idea how to start moving with Draco’s eyes fixed on him that intensely. Draco gave him an exquisite smile and began rolling his hips slowly, rutting up against Harry.

It was as though someone had pressed him into the mattress and held him there. Harry whimpered and threaded his fingers through Draco’s, holding him hand-to-hand, trying to understand the pleasure pouring through him.

It wasn’t going to be long until he came. But Harry wanted to enjoy this while he could.

The way Draco’s eyes shone, fixed on him. The faint blush of pink around his lips and up his cheekbones. The way he spread his legs wider suddenly and let out a long, rattling hiss that bounced around in his lungs and made him slam his cock into Harry’s.

Harry came. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop it. It was the most glorious moment of his life, those shudders that wracked him, the way that _someone else_ had made him feel like this.

Even then, he couldn’t help thinking that looking into Draco’s eyes was better.

He lost the battle to hold himself up, and Draco wrapped his arms around Harry and rolled on his side. Without pausing longer than it took him to do that, he began rolling his hips again, his breathing labored now, as if he was striving so hard for completion that it hurt.

Harry reached a hand down, his fingers trembling. He knew what he would touch, of _course_ he did, he was reaching deliberately for it, and yet.

But then he’d made contact with Draco’s cock, just a brush with his fingers, and Draco sucked in his breath and didn’t release it. Harry felt the soft cloth against his fingers suddenly turning slick and heavy, and he blinked and took a firmer hold.

“A little sensitive there, right now.”

Harry laughed breathlessly and let go with a final thumb-stroke. “That was so good, Draco,” he said, not able to resent the way his voice trembled, although at one point he would have despised himself for ever reacting like that. “I didn’t believe it. I didn’t know what I was missing. It was easy to say that I would live the rest of my life like that when I had no experience with it. But it was wonderful.”

“Of course it was.” Draco, who still had himself propped up instead of losing his balance right away like Harry had, stroked his first two fingers through Harry’s mop of sweaty hair. “Because it was us.”

Harry blinked and stared at him. He had thought Draco would say “Because it was me,” and then Harry could laugh with him and make fun of his arrogance in a way that he knew would make Draco smile. But this was different.

“Do you think it’s always going to be the same?” he had to ask, his uncertainty closing like a band around his throat again. “The intensity? I mean, I’ve read enough novels that talk about it dimming after a while, over the weeks and months that people are together.”

Draco raised his eyebrows slowly, but high enough that Harry flushed. “You think I would have taken a consort the intensity would fade with? No better, in the end, than what I would have condemned myself to if I’d tried to love Dahlia.”

“But you can’t _know_ that!”

“Of course I can know that. Do you think I would have come after you, pursued you, wooed you, if there was the least doubt in my mind that we could be great together?”

Harry blinked. Then he said, “That seems so _strange_ to me.”

“That’s because you never expected to have someone with you. You told me about that before. You’ll get used to it, and then you’ll see why I pretty much decided to court you the minute I heard your story from your parents.”

“No, not that part. I mean, how can you be so bloody certain all the time? You’re never upset, or you don’t doubt your decisions, and all I can think of is that I would. And that would be the same even if I’d had magic from birth and my parents had decided to raise me.”

“You did, and they should have.”

Harry waved his hand. Irritation was starting to prickle along his skin more than the aftermath of pleasure, and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. “Just answer the question, Draco. Please.”

*

Draco rubbed his thumb along Harry’s hip, and frowned a little. He didn’t know how to put it into words that were different than the ones he’d already used. Harry was talking like there was some great secret, but Draco would never have kept it from his intended if there was. He wanted to be honest with Harry at all times.

Harry snapped his fingers in front of his nose. Draco jumped and glared. Unfortunately, it seemed that his glare was losing its power to affect Harry. Harry kept staring, and a second longer, said softly, “Draco.”

Draco sighed. “There’s nothing more than what I already said. The minute I saw you, I knew you were the one I wanted. But even before that, I’d decided to court you. You could say that you were my only option, because you were still a Potter and you would fulfill the contract. But right now, if your parents went through some formal disownment process and your last name changed and you didn’t fulfill the contract anymore, I would still court you.”

“Why?”

“Because you should have had magic, and you’re beautiful, and you only get more beautiful when you discover magic, and I get to go back and laugh at your parents and mine, and it’s exhilarating teaching you these things and showing you the shops and the wand that should have been your birthright, and even when months go past and you’re not so new anymore, I can’t imagine that I’ll ever stop finding things to show you.”

Harry’s face melted into one of those sunrise smiles. He trailed his fingers down Draco’s shoulder and said in a patronizing manner, “There, was that so hard?”

“You’ve already felt my hardness.”

Harry flushed, but he was still smiling. “About ready to let me feel it again?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Draco growled, and pinned him to the bed.

*

_Deal with the wrongness._

Harry opened his eyes groggily. He and Draco were curled so tightly around each other in the bed that Harry was more than slightly surprised M.H. had managed to figure out where his head was and speak in his ear. “What wrongness?” he asked with a yawn, trying to avoid waking Draco. “What do you mean?”

_Get rid of the wrongness in the kitchen._

Harry grimaced. He wondered if they’d left food out to spoil, or the refrigerator had stopped working, or something equally ridiculous. He couldn’t actually remember eating dinner. Had he and Draco got food out at all? Maybe not.

“Or maybe we did and you knocked it to the floor,” he muttered to M.H., and set about the long process of disentangling himself from Draco.

_The wrongness._

M.H. slid in front of him. Harry followed, stepping carefully, and not only because it was dim. If there had been food spilled on the floor, or maybe a mouse M.H. had killed and was tired of playing with, he didn’t want to step on it.

He flinched backwards when a light sprang into being in front of him, and more when he saw that it was on the point of a wand.

“Ah, Harry,” said a voice he barely remembered. “I wondered when you might give in to the temptation to use your magic. Or should I say Voldemort’s?” His voice was heavy. “I suppose I should have known better than to assume it would stay hidden forever.”

The lighted wand moved up, and Harry jerked again when he saw the face. Unlike the voice, _that_ was familiar.

“Hello,” he said. “Mr. Dumbledore.”


	11. The Wrongness

“Forgive me,” Dumbledore was saying when Harry managed to shake the buzzing out of his ears and pay attention to the man again. “I didn’t want to put those monitoring spells on you. Yet it turned out to be a good thing I did.”

“Why did you have monitoring spells on me at all?” Harry asked, and he didn’t care that his eyes were narrowed with dislike. “I was a _Squib_!”

“I never thought you were precisely one. I thought you would have access to Voldemort’s magic if you lost control of yourself.”

“Then—you knew I could be trained. You knew I could use a wand.”

“Only at a terrible price.” Dumbledore was quiet, a lot less agitated than Harry felt, his hands folded in front of him as he stared at Harry. “Tell me, Harry, have you started having dreams yet? Memories? Has Voldemort started to whisper to you that what you really need to do is take over the wizarding world?”

“No. Because the magic isn’t his, it’s _mine_. And you knew that. You always knew it. You just didn’t want to admit it.”

Harry could feel the buzzing, the shaking, invade him. It wasn’t even his magic, he thought. It was just his anger, the anger he’d put aside again and again over the years and told himself wasn’t such a big deal. His parents were only being cautious, Dumbledore was only being cautious, if the Unspeakables who knew so much about magic told them Harry was dangerous then he was…

But now it was coming out. And M.H. reared up in front of him and hissed threateningly at Dumbledore, not in words but in what seemed to be shared rage. His tail coiled around Harry’s ankles.

Dumbledore looked at him and shook his head slightly. “So you have trained a deadly viper to attack, Harry? Tom did the same thing, once upon a time.”

Harry pulled himself back with a gasp and gritted his teeth as he said, “No. He’s not _trained_ to attack, he wants to do it because he cares about me.” He reached down and put a hand on M.H.’s head, making sure he was looking at him so the words would come out in Parseltongue. “You need to hold back, all right? We’re not fighting right now. We’re just arguing.”

M.H., surprisingly, didn’t respond. He simply slithered out of the room. Harry blinked, but he supposed it was better than having the snake between them in case Dumbledore cast a spell. He turned and faced the man again.

“I did not wish to treat you this way, Harry,” Dumbledore was saying, his voice patient and emphatic. “But I have to because you essentially have the plague.”

“The plague.”

Dumbledore paid no attention to the flat tone that Harry spoke the words in. “Yes. You could be the source for a plague that would devastate the world—the resurrection of Voldemort. You don’t _mean_ to be, any more than someone who carries the plague means to infect others. Yet it happens, and the patient must be quarantined for his own good.”

“What are you going to do to quarantine me?” Harry wished he hadn’t left his wand lying on the bedside table. He leaned forwards. “Do you _dare_ tell me this is still Voldemort’s magic and not my own I’m feeling?”

“Yes. Because it is.” Dumbledore looked at him with kind, sad eyes. “Voldemort’s magic utterly extinguished your own. When you were born, you were one of the most powerful babies I ever felt. I think Lucius Malfoy could feel it, too, which was probably why he agreed to betroth his son to you. And because having a foot on both sides of the war wouldn’t hurt him. But after Voldemort vanished, that power was gone. It has to be his magic that’s inside you. I remember what yours felt like, Harry, the way you remember a favorite song. And this is not that.”

“Draco thinks I was probably a Light wizard before, and now I’m Dark. Can you feel Dark power the same way you did Light?”

Dumbledore blinked, but shook his head. “I cannot—”

“Then—”

“But it would still not matter. Whether I can or not, a wizard does not change like that for any reason. So it would still be Voldemort’s power, whether it extinguished yours or you absorbed it.”

Harry opened his mouth to speak again, but Draco’s low, furious voice sounded from behind him. “Don’t give him one more minute of your time, Harry. You’ve already done him a favor he’ll never deserve, arguing with him.” Draco’s arms slipped around his waist and he rested his mouth against Harry’s collarbone. “What do you _want_ , old man?”

Harry couldn’t help relaxing backwards. He had to admit that Draco’s arms around his waist had a lot to do with it, but the curdled expression on Dumbledore’s face helped, too.

*

Draco would probably have awakened because of the cold spot next to him anyway, but to have a bushmaster resolutely poking him in the groin made it faster. He sat up, shook hair from his eyes, and frowned at M.H. “Where’s Harry?”

A second later, he felt ridiculous; he was no Parselmouth. But M.H. started slithering away exactly as if he had understood, so Draco got up and followed. He wondered if he would find Harry brooding in the kitchen about some other way he had thought of for magic to mess up his life.

Harry was in the kitchen, all right. And confronting the man who had been Draco’s Headmaster for seven years.

Draco startled himself with how incandescent his anger was. He actually had to restrain his wand hand and breathe carefully, deeply, as he strode forwards and slid his arms around Harry. Harry made it easier by almost falling into him, and the soft hissing of his own breath smoothed out. Draco lowered his lips to rest against Harry’s collarbone and watched Dumbledore.

“I think you know what I want, Mr. Malfoy.” Dumbledore’s voice remained old and tired. Draco might have been more convinced of this if he hadn’t shown that mask before, often while punishing some Slytherin student for crimes a Gryffindor would have got away with. “To make sure Voldemort’s magic is contained and the peace we live in isn’t broken forever.”

“I can’t believe you don’t know what happened,” Draco said pleasantly. These were questions he thought now he should have asked the Potters, but he had been solely focused on finding Harry then. “You had a survivor who _wasn’t_ a year old, correct? Ask Pettigrew.”

Dumbledore’s face became grim and concentrated. “I have. I have viewed his memories, spoken to him on many occasions, questioned him under Veritaserum. He does not know what happened because he is no more of a magical theorist than I am a prune.”

Draco was afraid for a second Harry would laugh. Laughter made you more comfortable with people and might prompt Harry to let Dumbledore have some control over him. But he didn’t, only leaning close to Draco and continuing to breathe in that soft way. Draco spoke the words they both needed to hear. “Then he saw, but he doesn’t understand.”

“He did not, but the Unspeakables I brought in did.” Dumbledore was looking at Harry with that faux tenderness again. It had to be false, Draco thought. No one condemned someone they _truly_ cared for to the kind of life Harry had endured. “They confirmed that either Mr. Potter’s core was extinguished or he had absorbed Voldemort’s power. Either way, as I have said, it is impossible for a Light wizard of immense power to simply turn into a Dark wizard of equally great power.”

“That means it didn’t happen,” Draco said. “Or say that he absorbed Voldemort’s power. Why would it make him evil? Then the magic is his by right of conquest. Similar things have happened in my ancestral family line.”

“Voldemort would never be conquered in that way.”

“But you thought he would be,” Draco said, shaking his head. The more he tried to penetrate the tangles of Dumbledore’s reasoning, the more lost he became. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have thought Harry was the one who could possibly defeat him.”

“His influence on his sister showed that—”

“I don’t believe his influence on Dahlia is _evil_ , or any of his doing, or even Voldemort’s,” Draco said loudly, because he had felt Harry tense in his arms again. “I think she’s doing it on purpose, for some reason of her own.”

“My dear boy, why would she? She went from a questioning, happy girl to one who was quiet and self-contained. There is no other reason for her to grow up that way—”

“Because we’re all naturally like we were as babies?” Draco stared at Dumbledore. “Are you _listening_ to yourself? You’d rather blame a child for being evil and influencing another child than look at the obvious?”

“I do not think he meant to. It was a disease, like the plague, as I said.” He turned back to Harry. “I would give anything for this not to have happened.”

“For Harry not to have discovered his magic? For me not to have found _him_ so I could help him get his life back?”

Draco knew he was vibrating with rage, and he could feel Harry put a cautious hand on his arm, probably because he thought Draco was going to explode. But at the moment, Draco found it hard to care. Dumbledore was such a _hypocrite_ , to enjoy the life his magic could give him and want to deprive Harry of it. And he had let the Potters exile Harry, and him speak to a bushmaster for years, without doing anything about it. If he really wanted to keep Voldemort’s magic quarantined, he was doing a piss-poor job of it.

*

Harry gently stroked Draco’s arm. He thought Draco might actually be more upset about what Dumbledore had said than Harry was, mainly because Harry was used to this kind of treatment, while Draco seemed astonished and angry that anyone should try it on _him_.

But Harry had thought of something, and it surprised him that he’d never thought of it before. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth to M.H. “Get my wand off the bedside table.”

M.H. immediately slithered out of the room and Dumbledore didn’t react except to frown, probably at the Parseltongue, so Harry knew he’d successfully kept it a secret for right now. He lifted his head and stared Dumbledore down as best he could. “Why did you just let me leave if you had to keep an eye on me?”

“I thought the monitoring charms would be enough.” Dumbledore stared at him with desperate sadness, but Harry thought about how good the magic and the wand and _Draco_ had felt, and was unmoved. That was the kind of thing Dumbledore had worked to keep Harry from having. “I never imagined that someone would be reckless enough to come and awaken you.”

Draco rolled his eyes. Harry didn’t turn to see him doing it, but he could _feel_ him doing it. “You’re ridiculous, old man. Any wizard could have noticed that he wasn’t a Squib eventually and might have become interested in training him.”

“No one in Harry’s home could feel him—”

“Because they were all _Light wizards_ ,” Draco said, with an air of patience that made Harry want to laugh. “What would have happened if an American Dark wizard found him, and decided to use Harry’s power for himself? He wouldn’t necessarily know anything about what happened, especially since Harry isn’t as famous over here. You supposedly wanted to keep him protected, but you took all these risks.”

Dumbledore blinked and pushed his glasses up his nose. “I did not think Harry could achieve even rudimentary mastery over Voldemort’s magic. There should have been no danger like this.”

And Harry knew something else, and he felt his lips part even as M.H. slithered up behind him with his wand pressed against Harry’s leg. Harry didn’t bend down to take it yet. M.H., who could be patient when there was either food or an enemy involved, simply held still.

“You—you sent me away so you wouldn’t have to look at your mistake,” Harry whispered. He was sure that was it, so sure that his lips tingled. “You didn’t want to worry about whether you were wrong. You didn’t want to see me growing up without magic.”

“You know that Squibs are usually introduced to the Muggle world at an early age, Harry—”

“But they still get to grow up with their _parents,_ most of the time,” Draco cut in. “And you never really thought Harry was a Squib. Not an ordinary one. Yet you go ahead and do _this_ to him, as if nothing really mattered except your own desires.” Draco shook his head in wonder. “Harry’s right. You couldn’t stand seeing him all the time and wondering if maybe you were mistaken, so you persuaded the Potters to send him off.”

“If you could listen,” Dumbledore whispered, but he seemed to have no real expectation that they would listen.

“I want to know what you were _thinking_.” Draco’s voice was rough, and Dumbledore was focusing entirely on him. Harry managed to bend down and take his wand from M.H.’s mouth without him noticing. “Why have his parents send him off without any _money_? Do you know the kind of life he was living here? He couldn’t afford new clothes, he didn’t go into the wizarding section because it was too expensive, he was eating _shitty_ food—”

“The Potters not unnecessarily wanted to reserve their inheritance for their magical children.”

Harry laughed. He didn’t recognize the sound, which was probably the reason Dumbledore looked at him and Draco’s arms tightened. “Well, I’m magical now. Doesn’t that mean I should get a quarter share of the vaults in their wills?”

“I am surprised you don’t know the history of your own family,” Dumbledore said mildly, although his eyes glittered like nails. “No Potter child who goes Dark is left anything of the sort.”

“When did I ever have a chance to _learn that history_?” Harry spat, and then he really did think this had gone on long enough. He lifted his wand and pointed it straight at Dumbledore.

From the wary way Dumbledore straightened, without touching his wand in return, Harry knew his guess had been return.

“You thought I was the most powerful baby you’d ever seen,” Harry said softly, eyes locked with Dumbledore’s. “And even if Voldemort’s magic replaced mine, that means I had to be equal to _him_. Exactly equal, or that wouldn’t have happened. Are you really going to challenge me, here, now?”

“I am asking you to think about the innocent people your magic would affect if you awaken Voldemort again.” Dumbledore actually dropped to one knee and spread his hands, still not reaching for his wand. “Not about me. Not about your parents. Not to forgive us. But to think about how many more Dahlias you will create if you awaken like this.”

Those words would have reached him a lifetime ago. Harry knew it with one part of his mind. But that part no longer wielded any influence over his actions.

“You have no proof,” Harry said. “All you know is that her behavior changed, and you think that I was responsible. You don’t know if it was accidental magic from Lilac, or some charm somebody performed, or even Dahlia’s _decision_. You have _no idea_. I was there to be blamed, and so you blamed me.”

“Voldemort was skilled with the Imperius Curse. We can’t take the chance—”

“So now it’s not even a plague, it’s an _imagined_ plague that _might_ hurt people,” Draco sneered.

Dumbledore looked at them again. Harry thought he was being as appealing as he knew how. “Would you risk even an imagined plague breaking out in Britain?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s over here, of course,” Harry said. “Not these Squibs or Muggles or wizards.”

Again Dumbledore looked as though he was about to say something. Then his lips pinched into a thin line. “While you didn’t use his magic, I didn’t have to worry about them. Now I do. I want you to understand what price the world may pay for you having a wand, Harry.”

“It’s going to pay the price of me being awake and willing to use magic. And my parents are going to pay the price of casting me aside.”

Dumbledore surged to his feet. “If you attack Lily and James, your brother and sisters—”

“The brother I’ve never seen? The sisters you think I influenced? The parents who cast me aside?” Harry almost screamed the last words, and had to step back against Draco for a minute, to calm himself. “No, Headmaster, I’m not going to attack them.”

There was a strained moment when Harry could feel how eager Dumbledore was to ask, but also not to oblige him.

“I am going to _ignore them_ ,” Harry said softly. “And not forgive them. And come back to Britain if I so choose, as the Malfoy consort. None of you are going to make me rethink my decisions again.”

He held out the wand towards Dumbledore. “Now, _get out of my house_.”

Dumbledore didn’t say anything else, perhaps because he knew it would be no use. He simply turned and Apparated.

Harry stood, breath rasping in his throat. He had maybe a moment to do that and wonder if Dumbledore would come back before he found himself spun around and _kissed_.

Draco’s tongue plunged into his mouth and made Harry feel as if he was drowning. Then he changed the kiss a little, and Harry was burning. He held out his arms to clasp them around Draco’s neck, and Draco shifted closer and covered him, and he was as hot as though he was beneath a mountain of piled covers.

So good, so _good_.

They broke apart at last, and Draco said, as if he was carving the words into stone, “I will support you in whatever you decide to do.”

“Good,” Harry said, leaning against him. “No matter what I ask?”

“No matter,” Draco whispered, his eyes burning.

“No matter what it might cost you with your parents?”

“No matter.”

“Then,” said Harry, and paused dramatically.

Draco held his breath.

“Support me in going back to bed, and getting another hour’s sleep.”


	12. Catalyst, Reaction

“Why did he think I would just give up my magic and agree with him about Voldemort coming back?”

Draco sat up in the covers, more than a little breathless. He had gone back to bed with Harry, and Harry had indeed slept for another hour, but Draco hadn’t been able to. The sight of Harry threatening Dumbledore with his wand, making a move to stay with Draco, supercharged his lungs with hot air. And he was still hard.

It didn’t sound as though he would persuade Harry to take care of that any time soon, though. Trying to shake the image of Harry gasping up at him and lashing out with his magic as Draco pushed inside him, he turned back to the other side of the bed.

“Maybe because he thought you’d always rolled over so far,” he suggested. “You went into exile and you didn’t every try to use your magic before this. You can admit, he might have thought you were tame.”

Harry froze. Then he whispered, “Is that really the way it looks from the outside?”

Draco shrugged. “Not to _me_ now, but I think it probably does to your family and Dumbledore.”

Harry lowered his head and breathed in silence for a few seconds. Then he said, “I don’t want them to think of me as tame.”

Draco nodded slowly. “I was thinking it was a good disguise, but now the disguise has been broken open by Dumbledore,” he explained, when Harry stared at him. “He might even have figured out that I _Obliviated_ the Potters and Dahlia. So we might as well go in at full strength, and make it clear that we won’t stand for your magic to be taken away.”

“I have a question.”

It was a quiet sentence, and Harry had his head bowed and his fingers twining around each other again. Draco reached out with a frown and caught hold of his fingers, gently squeezing them before he let them go. “If you don’t want them to think of you as tame, then don’t act as if you’re going to cringe before a charge.”

“I didn’t _mean_ that.” Harry’s breath hissed so harshly that Draco had no idea what he meant, and held still in hopes of finding out. Harry finally looked up, his face broken out in sharp blotches of red. “Should we bond before we see your parents again? And—my family?”

Draco blinked rapidly. It was true that they had the only things they needed for the bonding right here: the bonding bracelets he’d brought with him when he left the Manor, their wands, and themselves. He could stand up right now and lead Harry through the ceremony. It was something he had known since he was a child, the way he had known the history of the Malfoys and the genealogy of most of their allies’ families.

But he didn’t want to do it. He wanted something more sacred and stronger, even though he knew that he would never persuade his parents to join in anyway. He caught Harry’s hand and gently kissed his fingertips, shaking his head. “I don’t want to bond until you’ve had longer to get used to your magic and we’re both sure that’s what we want.”

“But you said you wanted it. You _said_.” There were other blotches coming out on Harry’s cheeks now, ones that Draco was sure could be attributed to anger.

“I know that.” Draco kept his voice low and precise. “But a bonding can’t be reversed, Harry. Not like—Muggle divorce.” It had taken him a moment to think of the word. “And I told you before, if what you wanted of me was learning to manage your magic and nothing else for right now, then I would do that for you. I want to woo you, but I won’t rush the courtship. And this kind of thing is going to leap right over it.”

“I don’t want them to be able to separate us. Couldn’t they do that if we went back unbonded?”

Draco gently touched the corner of Harry’s eye and traced it around in a curve until Harry was smiling from the tickling feeling, and looking at him again. Then he murmured, “They can’t separate us because I won’t let them.”

Harry tightened his shoulders for a second as if against a cold wind blowing. He finally said, “I don’t want your parents to _Obliviate_ you or disown you. I don’t want you to suffer because you decided to help me.”

“Never think this was completely unselfish,” Draco admonished him gently, and traced the corner of his eye again. “My parents would have forced me to marry someone they approved of, but who I couldn’t stand. I did and do want to help you, but I would never have shown up if I liked Dahlia.” For some reason, it seemed important to him that Harry understand that.

*

_Draco, don’t you think I know that?_

Oddly, it was one of the things that had made Harry decide to start trusting Draco. He had shown up telling Harry the truth and explaining that he wanted a consort he could bond with. If he had presented himself the way Harry’s family and Dumbledore had—talking about what was best for him and everybody else, and how Harry had to understand that that meant he would suffer—Harry would have shut the door in his face. Or had M.H. bite him.

But this way, he knew Draco would help him all the more, because he thought his own happiness depended on Harry knowing magic and finding his heritage.

Harry reached up and caught Draco’s wrist, stopping the finger that traced around his eye. It felt nice, but it was way too distracting. “I know that. I accept it. And you.” He ran his own hand through Draco’s hair, and Draco’s eyelids fluttered in return, something that made Harry feel incredibly smug. “But what you have to remember is that I’m allowed to be concerned about you in return. _Would_ your parents disown you?”

“They can’t. I’m the only child they have, the only continuation of their line.”

“But if they think that you’re doing something unworthy of a Malfoy…”

“They can _think_ that all they want. Acting on it is something different altogether.” Draco sounded so soft and smug that Harry tried to put aside his own fears and smile at him. He must have succeeded, because Draco’s smile softened to something adoring, and he touched the corner of Harry’s eye again. “We should go to England now, though, I think.”

Harry’s breath caught. “Without being bonded?”

“Not being bonded isn’t something they can use against us.” Draco settled back on his heels and grinned. “We’re both of age. Besides, your parents gave up any rights over you when they drove you into exile.”

Harry blinked. “They did?” He’d consulted one wizarding legal expert in Massachusetts on the rights of Squibs who had told him they were never considered adults, and their families could basically acquire authority over them whenever they wanted it. Most Squibs were left alone only because their families wanted nothing to do with them.

“They did, under British law. That’s one reason some families preferred to introduce Squibs _gently_ into the Muggle world instead of driving them away.” Draco’s mouth was crooked. “If you drive them away, they’re gone. They can do whatever they want, marry someone without your permission. Or bond.”

“If I’m not a Squib anymore…”

“Normal rules still apply. You’re of age. They could disown you, but they effectively already did. And I wouldn’t look forward to a share of the Potter fortune in their wills.”

Harry had to grin. “I never was.” Then he frowned. “But your parents could still hurt you through methods other than disowning you, couldn’t they?”

“Why don’t you let _me_ worry about that.”

“We’ll both worry about it,” Harry contradicted him, reaching out and winding his fingers through Draco’s, “because we’re both going back to England, and we’ll both face your family and tell them what idiots they are.”

Draco gave a smothered laugh and said, “Dahlia would never have stood up to my parents for me like this. She would have been convinced they were right, because they approved of her and she can act like the perfect little automaton around them and have them nod and smile.” He paused. “You know we’ll have to find out what happened to your sister?”

“If it was my magic or something else,” Harry said, with a sigh. He wasn’t looking forward to that, not least because it would probably involve his parents blaming him again. But it had to be done if they wanted any peace. “I know.”

“You needn’t look as though I’m condemning you to an execution.” Draco’s voice was very soft as he tightened his arms around Harry and pulled him in. “I promise that they won’t get the chance to insult you. I’ll wrap you up in a cocoon of my sparkling wit and no one can come close.”

Harry grinned again, despite the thought of the expressions on his parents’ faces when they saw him come in at Draco’s side. “There’s one thing you have to do first.”

“What’s that?”

Harry held out his hand. Draco stared blankly at him. Harry tapped his wrist.

“I think there’s a bonding bracelet that should be here to proclaim our intentions,” Harry finally said, when Draco’s stare hadn’t faded.

*

Draco felt as though all the air in his chest had caught fire at once. He reached out and drew Harry’s hand to his lips, kissing the back of his wrist.

“I think we can arrange that,” he whispered, and went to fetch the bonding bracelets from their nest of Acromantula silk. He hadn’t bothered to put on clothes, and Harry’s appreciative eyes lingered on him all the way. That made Draco want to strut, but the fire burning in his chest rendered that difficult.

Gently, Draco pushed back the silk and took out the bracelets. Yes, he could have Summoned them, but he didn’t want to take the slightest chance of them crashing into something and breaking.

He turned around and carefully cradled them in his hands, then took a step towards Harry and sank to one knee. Harry looked as though he was having his own problem with fire, his face flushed and his eyes so bright they seared Draco.

“You may have made the decision, but I’m making the offer,” Draco breathed. “Harry Potter, will you become my bonded consort?”

Harry drew in a slow, overwhelmed breath. “Yes,” he said finally, the whisper fluttering on the edges of Parseltongue, and held out his hand.

Gently, Draco slid the appropriate bracelet onto it, and tapped it with his finger. The magic in the bracelets reacted to intentions and family blood, not a wand; in seconds it had shrunk to perfectly fit Harry’s wrist. Harry stared down at the small sparks of color in the glass, and swallowed.

“You will want for nothing that I can provide you,” Draco said smoothly, reciting the words that were the traditional Malfoy ones for accepting a consort. They were different than the ones spoken at a wedding. Then again, a consort was different from a husband or wife. Draco only had to glance at Dahlia to be _happy_ about those differences. “You will have my protection, my breath, my life, my body. In all my interests I promise to put you first.”

Harry clutched the bracelet with one hand, the bed with the other. Then he said, “I’ll promise to be as faithful and important to you as you are to me.”

Not traditional words, but Draco had to admit, as he stood and kissed Harry, that he couldn’t think of anything better.

*

Harry touched the bonding bracelet on his wrist and felt the soft warmth of the glass. He hadn’t asked Draco if there was an enchantment on them. He didn’t know if he feared the answer that there was or that there wasn’t more.

Draco stepped up beside him with one hand held out. “I know you want to take M.H., and your wand, and the new clothes I bought you,” he said. “Those are already packed.” He glanced at M.H., who had wound himself around Harry’s ankles and gone to sleep. “That will work to Apparate him. Please be honest.”

“Honest about what?” Harry didn’t need to play dumb.

“Do you want to take anything else with you?” Draco’s hand passed like a hovering shadow over his face, smoothing down the line of his cheek. “Is there _really_ a tattered piece of Muggle clothing, or a bowl or knife, that you care enough about? Or a blanket?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You never did buy me new ones. You only Transfigured one.”

“You should see the ones I’ll buy you once we’re back in Britain.”

Harry folded his arms and struggled to maintain his teasing tone. “I keep hearing promises about these blankets. They never come true.”

Draco kissed the back of his wrist, the way he had often since Harry put the bonding bracelet on, stooping down to do it. His eyes never left Harry’s. “Would you rather go blanket-shopping first? We can always do that, you know. And I can show you the small house where we can live. It has wards strong enough to fend off a combined attack of Malfoys and Potters, if it comes to that.”

“Strong enough to resist Dumbledore?”

“As long as there’s a member of the family blood living there.”

Draco sounded absolutely calm and settled. Harry squeezed his hands abruptly, and saw the way Draco started.

“Thank you,” Harry said. “Thank you for being here, for coming to court me, for wanting to bond with me, for introducing me to my magic, and being strong enough that you’re not afraid of what your parents can do.”

He’d never made a speech like that in his life, but the words flowed from his lips as easily as if he had. Harry blinked a little. Maybe he’d…well, maybe he’d been inspired.

His inspiration was a little flushed. He reached out and curled his arm around Harry’s waist, tugging Harry flat against him. Harry swayed forwards, eyes not leaving Draco’s gleaming lips.

Draco swallowed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t kiss you, or we won’t Apparate back to Britain before tonight, especially with all the stops we’ll have to make along the way.”

Harry flinched at the thought of those jumps; a nine-year-old memory of them was still unpleasant. But when Draco narrowed his eyes a little and waited, he only said, “If anyone can make that much Apparition nice for me, it’s you.”

Draco immediately looked as smug as a cat with ten canaries in its belly. “Hang onto me,” he said, and Summoned the small shrunken trunk that all of Harry’s new clothes, as well as the few belongings Draco had brought with him, were tucked into. Harry made sure that he had his new wand, and that M.H.’s grip was firm around his feet.

As they Apparated, Harry looked around his flat and wondered if he would see it again.

*

Draco straightened the collar of his robes. Yes, Apparating via multiple jumps to get from Canadian island to Canadian island, then to Iceland, and then across more scattered islands in the North Atlantic and Britain was exhausting, especially when he had only newly learned their Apparition coordinates. But he and Harry had had an hour to put the small Malfoy house Draco intended to live in to rights, instruct the house-elves in the décor they wanted, and alter the wards so that Draco was the only Malfoy who could enter or leave. That was enough time to rest and get ready to face his parents.

“You’ll do fine.”

Draco cast Harry a glance. “I distinctly remember being the one to reassure _you_ when we began this journey.”

“And now I’m giving back what I took,” said Harry calmly, although for a moment his hands clenched in the sleeves of his robe. “Is that wrong? I thought consorts should give as well as take.”

Draco’s irritation melted away like frost. He took Harry’s hand and touched the bonding bracelet. “Forgive me. I know my parents aren’t going to be pleased, and they can both be cutting when they want to.”

“But you don’t want to marry Dahlia.”

“Of _course_ not.”

“Well, that’s the only result that would please them,” Harry said calmly, meeting and holding his gaze, “so we resign ourselves to them not being pleased, and go on with our lives.”

Draco smiled and looped his arm with Harry’s. “And be as traditional as we can, just to anger them further. Can you look as distant and unimpressed as I was when I first came to your flat?”

“Well, I do hope so,” said Harry, although his eyes laughed. “Considering that you were staring at me the entire time, you didn’t give me much of an idea that you were unimpressed.”

“Always with you, not the surroundings,” Draco said, and stepped outside the house to whirl them both into darkness. They arrived on the front steps, inside the gates and the wards, as only blood family or someone Side-Along Apparated by blood family could do. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Draco nodded and glided up the steps with Harry on his arm. A house-elf opened the door before he could touch it, and squeaked with wide eyes. Even more perfect, his father was coming down the front stairs in dress robes, and his mother waited at the bottom. They both turned at the elf’s sound.

“Father, Mother,” Draco said calmly, “may I present Harry Potter, who has agreed to become my consort?”

Harry lifted his head and said, with precise, cold intonation, “Charmed.”


	13. Charmed

Draco didn’t think his parents could move anymore. He wondered, for a moment, if Harry had used more of that wild magic that followed his will instead of his wand and _made_ them stay in place.

Then he saw the way his father’s hands trembled in rage, and doubted it.

“What is this you have brought home, Draco?” His mother’s voice had no emotion in it. It didn’t even crackle like ice. It simply was.

“Not a what, a who,” Draco said. He wouldn’t begin this with misconceptions. “And I thought I told you already.” He adopted a puzzled face. “My consort. Didn’t I mention that?”

“I thought you did, and loudly enough that it made my ears tremble.” Harry leaned on him heavily, and his smile at Narcissa wasn’t particularly pleasant. “But maybe your parents have trouble hearing? We know they have trouble sensing magic.”

Draco caught his breath, but when he thought about it, he supposed there was no actual _reason_ not to carry the battle to his parents. He simply hadn’t imagined doing it so soon. “Well, I’d like to know the answer to that, too.” He slid his arm behind Harry’s back and guided him up the last steps into the house. “Why didn’t you insist on having your son bonded to a powerful _Dark_ wizard? You must have sensed what Harry was the instant you saw him for the first time after he defeated Voldemort.”

Narcissa turned and looked at Lucius. They held a silent conversation with their eyes, in the way Draco would have liked to do. Draco shook his head a little. The desire to have that kind of conversation had driven him away from Dahlia and in search of his true consort.

He could only be thankful that he’d found Harry in time.

“You have interesting ideas, Draco.” His father’s voice creaked. Draco knew he was holding back rage, but Lucius’s control was so perfect, Draco didn’t know what else lay behind it. “Including the idea that you’re free to choose your own spouse.”

“Oh, I know I’m not,” Draco said, and saw the moment that Lucius’s mask trembled a little. “But a consort is a different matter. I’m free there, since the contract doesn’t say anything about whether I have to have a wife or a consort. It only says I must be bonded to a Potter child.” He gave his father a smile.

 _I never knew how much fun it could be dueling with words._ Draco hadn’t often challenged his parents, though. He’d kept his banter for friends like Blaise and Pansy, who could appreciate it. Talking back to his parents too often would only get him snapped at.

And now it could get him worse than snapped at. It might get him disowned.

It astonished him how little he cared. What mattered was the weight of Harry’s arm around his shoulders, the warmth of Harry’s side against his.

_I could get used to this._

“We should discuss this in private,” said Narcissa.

“In private,” his father agreed. His mask had solidified again, and he turned to regard the door of the room across from them, glancing back at Draco as if he was sure that Draco would consent to accompany them.

“If you don’t want house-elves overhearing…” Draco said with a little shrug. He knew perfectly well what they meant, but pretended ignorance was a tactic he had picked up from Harry, and that _also_ worked remarkably well. He started forwards, only to stop as his father drew his wand.

Draco turned his wrist so the bonding bracelet caught the light. He wouldn’t draw on Lucius unless he had to; it was the current head of the Malfoy family’s prerogative to defend himself inside his own house, and that meant nasty spells would strike Draco if he tried. “I am engaged to bond, Father. Don’t make me defend my consort because you can’t control yourself.”

Those words were effective weapons, as he had known they would be. More than anything else, a man like his father didn’t want to be accused of not being able to _control_ himself. He lowered his wand with a motion that reminded Draco of some of his great-grandmother’s clockwork productions, and tucked it away.

“Then come with us, _Mr._ Potter. Since you must.”

Maybe Harry didn’t catch the emphasis on that title instead of his last name, but Draco knew why it was there. It was meant to remind Draco, and Harry, that it should have been _Miss_ Potter instead.

Draco didn’t care. He drew Harry along with him, and after a single deep glance into his eyes, Harry nodded and followed.

Draco strutted, deliberately not turning to look at his mother, who followed them, or the whispering portraits that crowded the walls to stare at him and Harry. Yes, this would be hard. He had known that when he first began imagining some way to escape from his betrothal to Dahlia.

Hardship alone was no reason to give something up.

*

The first thing Harry thought to himself when he saw the interior of the house was, _How did someone as generous as Draco manage to grow up in this place?_

He supposed it was beautiful, and it certainly indicated the Malfoys had money, but it was so _cold_. The marble walls gleamed, and the portraits and landscapes on them made them no warmer. The portraits were all formally arranged blond wizards and witches with glistening blue or grey eyes, and the landscapes were all of winter fields with black trees in the distance.

And along the way to whatever private room the Malfoys wanted to talk in, they passed closed doors of white and black wood, and marble statues of wizards dueling centaurs and goblins, and once a wooden pedestal that held a glittering scroll Harry supposed was important. The same lack of real color, the same feeling of horrible repression.

_No wonder they approve of Dahlia, if what Draco told me about her was true._

Harry shook his head a second later. Of course it was true. It reminded him of his memories before his exile. Dahlia had always been quiet, monotonous, walking around with her head bowed. Mrs. Malfoy probably thought that was the epitome of the woman Draco should marry.

 _I wonder if she realizes some things are different, though?_ It was obvious Mrs. Malfoy had emotions, just by the way she snapped her head back to meet Harry’s eyes, and snapped it forwards again, and moved with a grace that had a hint of stiffness to it. Harry didn’t think he could tell what they _were_ , but he knew they were there.

_Does she know that Dahlia has no spirit like she does?_

Harry had no real time to wonder about it. They were evidently at the door of the sitting room where the Malfoys had wanted to talk “in private” with Draco. Mr. Malfoy snapped it open and gave a single, elaborate bow.

Harry suspected it was ironic, but Draco nodded as if he expected this and paraded into the room with Harry on his arm.

This room had the only portraits that had deigned to do no more than whisper behind their hands so far. The one that hung above the chair facing the door actually stood up. He was an old wizard who had dangling white hair and grey eyes so fierce that Harry thought for a moment of a grumpy iguana he had healed a year ago. It had nearly taken his hand off.

“Get him _out_ of here! Why is he parading beside my grandson? And why is wearing that bonding bracelet?”

 _At least that answers the question of who this portrait is,_ Harry thought, and tried to look as comfortable and cool as he could, nodding to the picture instead of responding. Draco leaned towards him and murmured into his ear, “My grandfather Abraxas.”

“Why does this whelp deserve an _introduction_? Get him out of here! Out, out—”

“Now, Father,” said Lucius, although from the lazy droop to his eyelids, he looked pleased. Harry wondered for a second why he thought this portrait would intimidate Draco into backing out of the relationship when none of the others had, but Lucius answered the question in the next second. “I’m sure that our mutual descendant has his reasons for violating the traditions of his family.”

_They know they can’t make Draco back down, but they’re hoping to make me do it, by showing me what Draco could lose._

Harry shook off his own anxiety like a dog shaking off water, and didn’t care about the way Mrs. Malfoy’s mouth pursed. He would let Draco handle this, as he had so far, and speak up in support. He wouldn’t undermine him by expressing fear.

“No Malfoy heir can marry a spouse his parents disapprove of,” the portrait snapped.

Draco looked as if he wanted to laugh, and turned his wrist again. “But I intend to bond, not marry, and to a consort, not a spouse. And there is nothing in any of the inheritance documents Father has shown me about _that_.”

 _Technicalities,_ Harry thought, and blinked. Well, he had to be grateful for the technicalities. Draco never would have thought of seeking a consort his parents hadn’t already approved without them, after all.

“You are disrespectful, boy,” said the portrait, his voice cold, but he leaned back a little, and let Harry look away from him for the first time. He supposed the room was furnished well, if you liked cold colors and the furniture being all made of stiff wood. “Your parents could teach you a lesson. Or _I_ could, if I was still alive.”

“I’m sure you could, sir,” Draco said, in a voice so obviously placating that Harry couldn’t hide his grin.

Abraxas noticed, of course. He leaned over to squint at Harry. “Think _something_ is funny, boy?”

Harry abruptly realized one perfect way he could answer, and they couldn’t even object to the content of his answer violating some unknown law of etiquette. He looked up at the portrait with as much meekness as he could muster, and hissed, “ _I would never dream of disrespecting you, except that it’s necessary to support Draco_.”

He had to entwine his fingers with Draco’s a moment later and hold on, hard, to keep from howling in laughter. Abraxas was squeezed so far over on the side of his portrait that he looked as if he would disappear, and Lucius and Narcissa were staring at him as though he’d urinated on the furniture.

“What is that? Make it _stop_.”

“Parseltongue, Father.” Lucius recovered faster than the portrait, which Harry supposed he should have expected. His gaze was narrow and sharp as he moved his hand to the chairs. From the way Narcissa immediately sank into one, Harry supposed they were meant to do the same. “I didn’t know you could speak Parseltongue.”

“I can.” Harry saw no reason to say more than that, or to move away from the seat on the couch that Draco had pulled him down into, even though he was practically leaning into Draco’s lap and Narcissa was showing him a moue of distaste. At least, Harry thought it was called a moue. He’d never seen a picture, but it looked like exactly the sort of expression the word moue would be invented to describe.

“And I didn’t know you were a Dark wizard.” Lucius took the chair beside his wife, his back to the portrait.

“I am.”

Draco moved his knee slightly against Harry’s. Harry took one glance at the approval dancing in his eyes and managed to relax. He wasn’t forcing Draco to choose between him and his family, then.

 _They’re the ones forcing him to do that,_ Harry reminded himself, and beamed genially around the room.

“Why did you not tell us this?” Lucius was addressing Draco, then. Harry doubted they meant he should have Apparated across the ocean and told them. Drowned in it, maybe.

“Because I didn’t mean to seek your approval. I’m fulfilling the terms of the contract, and that means that I should be able to bond with whom I like.” Draco’s voice was as flat as a tray.

“But we would have approved of someone with these traits,” said Narcissa. Harry was almost surprised the words didn’t turn into icicles when they left her mouth.

“What did I just say, Mother?”

Harry winced a little. Of course he supported Draco in whatever he chose to say and do, but those words sounded like a declaration of war. He wasn’t sure if it was for his own comfort or Draco’s that he squeezed his hand again.

*

_Harry looks as if he feels sorry for me. Or my parents._

Since Draco couldn’t tell exactly which it was, he didn’t think he had to address it right now. It was much more important to make his parents understand that they couldn’t order him around, and that he had the right to bond with who he wished.

Father had spoken more than Draco had thought he would, and so had Grandfather. Bringing them into the same room where the portrait was was a clever ploy, Draco had to admit. It made disapproval seem inescapable, as if it was possible to fill the air with it and crush them that way. But Draco could feel the steel in Harry.

Steel, and diamond. They usually resisted being crushed.

He said, when some moments had passed and his parents only stared with motionless eyes, “I chose a consort who would fulfill the terms of the contract. I did not know until I…learned more that Harry was a Parselmouth, and not until I met him that he was a powerful Dark wizard. Those aren’t the factors I based my decision on.”

“You seem to have been extraordinarily lucky,” said his mother, “finding an acceptable consort by chance.”

“He is more than acceptable, he’s wonderful, and he’s _mine_ ,” Draco told her. “I don’t care about whether he’s acceptable to you.”

Father drew in a sharp breath and leaned back. By that, Draco knew he hadn’t misread the signals, even though he didn’t understand his mother as well as Father did. Her fury was brewing like a volcano’s steam underground.

Draco didn’t actually care. He leaned forwards and gave her a lazy smile that he knew would bring the fury boiling up.

“You spent _years_ foisting an unacceptable consort on me,” he said quietly. “I expressed my disgust of her in everything I did. I was rude, which you taught me was the unacceptable sin, in an effort to get rid of her. And yet you went on doing it. She’s a Light witch, she’s dull, and she’s incapable of giving our family everything that Harry can. She’s incapable of making me happy. Now, I want you to tell me something. Did you do this simply because of the contract, and because you thought Harry was a Squib and didn’t see any other way to get out of it? Or was there a motive that you have yet to reveal to me?”

From the way Narcissa arranged her hands on her lap, she was awaiting battle. Draco still didn’t care. Better to have her carry the battle than smolder away at him and attack his unprotected back.

_That’s one thing Harry was spared from, a temperamental family who might strike out at any moment. Of course, the way he avoided it was by having his family strike him from the front when he was ten years old, so…_

Draco promised himself silently, grimly, that he wasn’t about to envy Harry his family situation. They wouldn’t envy each other. They would simply support each other.

“She fulfilled the contract,” Narcissa was saying. “And she was pleasing to me.”

“Did it matter that she wasn’t to _me_? The one who would have to actually marry her?”

Narcissa sat in silence, and Draco had his answer. No. There hadn’t been any secret reason he hadn’t known about. Narcissa had placed his wife’s poise above the conversations that they could have with each other, the _life_ they would have with each other.

Draco breathed in steadily through the pain, and knew when Harry touched his bracelet that he wouldn’t sag under it. “All right. Then tell me now whether you will accept my choice of Harry, and break off the betrothal with the Potters.”

There was a silence so heavy that Draco thought it would make Grandfather Abraxas’s portrait fall from the wall. Lucius said nothing. He only looked at Narcissa. Draco wondered if he had had reservations about Dahlia himself, ones he would never have brought up if Draco had swallowed dullness for the rest of his life and married her.

“You did not know what you would find when you went after— _Mr._ Potter.” Narcissa’s voice was low and tense.

“I believe that we’ve already addressed that, Mother.” Draco’s eyebrows lifted. “If nothing else, my desperation should suggest the many, many reasons that my betrothal to Dahlia Potter is inappropriate.”

“But you could not know.”

Draco studied her. Was this all she wanted, for him to admit that his choice of Harry had worked out better than he could have foreseen if he was a Seer? That he hadn’t known that, and he had gone ahead and done that anyway? That she had been the one relying on the known quantity?

_That’s not flattering to her._

But it seemed to be what she wanted. Draco finally nodded and said, “That’s true.”

Narcissa closed her eyes. Then she said, “You must confront Mr. Potter’s parents before I will give my consent.”

“To what end?” Harry asked, his voice heavier than the silence had been. “They’re never going to put my name back in the contract. They think I’m Voldemort reincarnated.”

Father flinched. Draco had never been prouder of the way he could hold himself still.

Narcissa, of course, did the same. She leaned forwards and said, “To show that you are ready to stand beside my son no matter what life brings him.”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up, and then his body followed suit. He reached out a hand and hooked it into Draco’s elbow. “Shall we go and scare my parents, then, darling?” he asked. “Or shall we go back home, get M.H., and _really_ scare them?”

Draco felt as if sunshine had invaded his chest. He kissed Harry’s hand before he allowed himself to stand. “Of course we should get M.H. Your family should welcome back all the people important to their son, shouldn’t they? And I’m sure M.H. has things to say to them.”

Harry touched Draco’s bracelet, and his eyes were bright enough that the sitting room, Draco’s watchful mother, his narrow-eyed father, and Grandfather Abraxas peering around the edge of the frame, faded into insignificance. There was only the now.

_And how difficult can handling one Light family be, when we’ve faced the Dark?_


	14. Worse Than the Dark

Harry kept himself from reeling when they landed in front of his family’s house—the Potters’ house. Probably best if he kept thinking of them that way, because they wouldn’t think of _him_ as having any right to their last name or their house.

“Harry?” Draco stroked his bonding bracelet for a moment, his eyes as watchful as a raven’s.

“Just—the shock of seeing the place again after all these years,” Harry said, and smiled at Draco while a rush of memories assaulted him like winter wind.

He’d thought he honestly _didn’t_ remember much of it. After all, the memories that came to him most prominently were his mother’s sad eyes and the soft way his parents discussed him at night in trembling voices and the way his scar writhed and danced when Dumbledore or a visiting Unspeakable bent down towards him.

But now, as Draco escorted him towards the pillared porch, Harry remembered more. The pillar where he’d carved his name as a boy. The huge garden where his mother grew all sorts of varieties of lilies, more because James wanted her to than because she liked them herself. The Quidditch pitch where Sirius and Remus and James chased each other on brooms, yelling.

“We don’t have to do this right now. We can go back to our house and let my parents think whatever they like.”

 _Merlin, I must look bad._ Harry mustered a smile for Draco and straightened his spine. “No. I came this far, and I _do_ want to go on,” he added reassuringly at the dubious shine in Draco’s eyes. “Just—not as much as I thought I did.”

“You’ll tell me if it’s too much for you.”

Draco sounded as cold and furious as he had when Dumbledore invaded Harry’s flat. Harry knew the reason. Draco wanted to protect him more than he wanted to confront the Potters. _Think of them that way._

“I will,” he said, and then turned and walked into what should have been his home for the first time since he was ten years old.

The lavish entrance hall was unfamiliar; he either hadn’t spent a lot of time here or they’d redecorated, he honestly couldn’t remember which. There was a huge painting of a woman rising from the waves on the far wall, and the room was huge and didn’t have many pieces of furniture, but a few mirrors gleamed here and there. M.H., who had followed behind them without saying anything so far, lifted his head to try to see himself in them.

_Who is that?_

Harry looked, and saw a child on the floor, staring up at them in shock, his mouth open a little. He had shaggy black hair and bright blue eyes that Harry didn’t remember in either of his parents’ faces. Well, that didn’t mean they didn’t have a blue-eyed relative hiding somewhere on the Potter family tree.

_I know so little about them._

“Who are you?” the little boy blurted.

Harry swallowed. “Eric,” Draco was murmuring into his ear, but Harry knew who it must be. The brother he’d never met, the brother born five years ago.

“My name’s Harry,” was the only thing Harry felt he could say, even as he bent down towards the boy. M.H. slithered over, his tongue flickering out as if to compare Eric’s scent to Harry’s. “I used to live here.”

“No one told me about you!” Eric was staring at him and didn’t seem to know how to feel. If he was afraid of M.H., he didn’t show it. He was scowling at the floor instead. “I want someone to tell me everything,” he muttered. He flicked a finger against the toy in front of him, which seemed to be made of sleek silver balls and bells joined by wire. Harry honestly wasn’t sure what it was meant to do.

“Well, your parents exiled him, so that’s why they didn’t tell you,” said Draco. Harry turned and glared at him. He shrugged a little. “What?”

“He’s only a kid. He doesn’t know what exile means.”

“I do so! It means sending someone away.”

Harry smiled a little, but before he could open his mouth, a cold voice he remembered well spoke from the side. “Corrupting our son the way you did our daughter before you even told us you were back in the country?”

Harry shivered. He couldn’t recall the sounds of his father’s voice well, but then, James didn’t write to him very often. Lily did, and she was talking, now, the way she wrote. The tone and the pauses were all hers.

His mother wore a pair of green robes that Harry had to admit complemented her eyes and hair. From the soundless growl Draco uttered as he moved up beside Harry, he actually didn’t care about how Lily looked.

“We asked you to keep away,” Lily continued in a low voice. “To not corrupt or stain Dahlia’s wedding into the Malfoy family. And then you couldn’t even do _that_.” She shook her head and glanced to the side as if she had no idea how to react, what to say. Harry knew the exact moment she caught sight of M.H., because she stopped breathing for a second.

_Tell me if she is prey. She doesn’t smell like prey._

“That is _enough_.” Draco’s voice rang like a sword being drawn from a scabbard. “I know Dumbledore must have sent you word. You truly didn’t realize that I would be bonding your son, not your daughter?”

Lily turned as if looking away from M.H. would make him cease to exist. Her face had gone blank. Harry, still reeling a bit from her words, swallowed and wondered if that was for the best. He could feel the warmth of Draco’s arm against his back, and that was the only thing that kept him from retreating.

He had thought he was ready. He had stood at Draco’s side as they faced his parents. He hadn’t realized…

He’d thought more of his heart was sealed away from the Potters’ anger than it was. It had been ten years, after all.

 _Not long enough,_ Harry decided, staring into his mother’s eyes. _Maybe it never would be._

*

“He says that he used to live here, Mum!” Eric was tugging on Mrs. Potter’s hand. “How can he be bad? Or does corrupting mean something else?” He looked doubtfully at Draco and Harry and leaned against his mother.

 _Harry should be able to do that._ Draco didn’t like the idea of making a scene in front of a five-year-old, but at the same time, he wouldn’t let Mrs. Potter use the child as an excuse to get out of the confrontation.

“Dumbledore told me nothing,” Lily said, disregarding her younger son for the moment.

“ _Mum_.”

“Nothing,” Draco repeated softly, his eyes narrowed. He tried to understand what the Headmaster could be playing at, but nothing came to mind.

He shook his head. Well, it would be a different kind of confrontation with the Potters than he’d envisioned, then. But he had to grin as he thought that he might get to see some better stunned expressions.

He drew Harry against him. Harry went quietly. He had become still and glassy-eyed after Lily had spoken. Draco hoped to cure that as well as shock the parents who had thrown their most precious child away. “I’m bonding with Harry. I discovered his flat, and I discovered I like him _much_ better than Dahlia. We’re already engaged, as you can see.” He turned his wrist. Lily Potter ought to know what the bracelets looked like.

Lily only blinked as if she hadn’t heard the announcement he’d made just a few minutes ago. Then she shook her head and said, “You can’t break Dahlia’s heart that way.”

“I doubt she has a heart to break,” Draco said. Harry’s hold tightened on his wrist, but Draco ignored it. Quite frankly, he was speaking exactly what he thought. Maybe he would have felt differently if Dahlia had ever shown she had one. “And I’ve made my choice. I’m not changing it back.” M.H. crawled lazily up to his feet, bobbing his head as if he approved of Draco’s decision.

“There speaks that spoiled Malfoy upbringing that I’d hoped you’d got over. Do you have any idea how much like a child you sound?”

“What? For declaring my mind and holding to my choice? Or for not doing what _you_ wanted?”

Lily’s lips thinned. “Because you taunt and sound defiant and don’t—you _can’t_ do that. There’s a betrothal contract. There’s a wedding being planned _right now_. Dahlia has set her whole heart on this.”

“I told you, I doubt that.” Draco stroked the side of Harry’s throat, and Harry finally relaxed with a little shiver and sigh, dropping a hand to M.H.’s head. If he hissed to the snake, it was too soft for Draco or Lily to hear. “You’ll have to find some other means to persuade me. Or better, gracefully give up and don’t try to persuade me. You’ll lose.”

Lily turned and stared at Harry instead—which Draco had to grudgingly admit was smart of her, as little as he wanted to praise anything about Lily Potter. She had to sense that Harry was a lot more rocked off his feet and weak-willed than Draco was at the moment. “I told you what you did to this family. Now you’re doing the second-worst thing you could possibly do. Why couldn’t you _stay away_?”

“I…I wanted to understand. And Draco told me I was a wizard, and I wanted my magic—”

“You’re a _Squib_!”

“You never sensed his power,” Draco drawled. Now was the time to find the answer to a question that had been puzzling him. “Even though he’s not a Squib. Explain to me how that happened. Why could you not sense the magic that I can feel, practically threatening to drown the room?”

Lily visibly struggled for a moment, while Eric looked on with big eyes. Then she said, “That’s not _his_ power. It’s Voldemort’s. Harry is a Squib. What he carries around is—like a disease. Who in their right mind would use it? Any more than they would use some of the rituals _Voldemort_ used, to try and make himself immortal!”

Draco stared at her. He opened his mouth. He thought he would give her some scolding about how ridiculous her perceptions were.

Instead, he started to laugh, stunning even himself.

Lily only stared at him without expression, without understanding. Harry jumped against him, then relaxed when M.H. twined around his ankles. Draco bent double with his laughter, although he still stayed right behind Harry, ready to shield him. Eric tugged on Lily’s hand and said insistently, “ _Mum_.”

Draco finally managed to stop laughing. “So, the whole time,” he said, still having to force little bubbles of hysteria down, “you—you thought—oh, this is _rich_ —calling Harry a Squib was a _terminology issue?_ It didn’t even matter who was looking at Harry’s magic—it mattered what you _called it_?”

“It’s not his magic! It’s—”

“Show her what you can do, Harry,” Draco said, not moving. He would have tried to give some direction, but he was sure that Harry, so much nicer and more restrained than his birth family, would choose an appropriate display.

Lily flinched as Harry raised his wand, as if she was sure that he would burst out with an Unforgivable. But Harry only said, “ _Lumos_ ,” clear as wind, and that kind of clear light began to blaze from the end of his wand. It filled the room from one end to the other, and lifted some unsightly shadows lying beneath the portrait of Aphrodite.

“That’s impossible,” Lily whispered.

“Why? You always knew he had magic, you just _called_ it something else.”

“But Voldemort’s power—Voldemort’s power can’t be used except to hurt and kill.” Lily looked as if she was shrinking into herself like the turtles whose shells had made Harry’s wand.

“ _Mum_.”

“Then perhaps you should admit that you made a mistake.” Draco smiled at her. “You might have given birth to a powerful Light wizard for a son. What you have now is a powerful _Dark_ wizard.” He draped his hand over Harry’s shoulder and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “A powerful Dark wizard who would be well within his rights to turn his back on you.” Not that he thought Harry would forgive them anyway—he’d promised—but Draco couldn’t suppress the impulse to hold out the promise of forgiveness and then snatch it away again.

Lily only shook her head, looking overwhelmed. She finally snatched her hand away from Eric’s and shoved him hard towards the far side of the entrance hall, so hard that he stumbled. “Go get your father,” she said.

Eric opened his mouth as if to protest, but then he must have seen something in Lily’s face that decided him. He turned and ran as fast as he could towards the doorway hidden among the pillars.

Maybe because she’d decided that appealing to Draco was useless, Lily turned to Harry. “Do you approve of this?” she whispered. “Coming back and tormenting your family? Bringing a snake here, one of _Voldemort’s_ creatures? Taking your sister’s betrothed away from her? I thought you were a Squib. I was wrong. I thought you had a shred of common human decency. Don’t let me be wrong about that.”

Draco wanted to shout, but he kept himself still. He thought Lily wouldn’t notice the way his hand tightened on Harry’s shoulder, or at least she wouldn’t have an idea of what it meant.

His bonding bracelet sparked with warmth and magic, and Harry’s bracelet sparked back. God, this had to go well. The more moments that passed without Harry speaking, though, the more Draco thought that he might have been affected by Lily’s plea.

_Don’t let him be. Don’t let him think of anything right now but how much I love him._

*

Harry really _wanted_ to cast some spells that would probably only confirm the ideas his mother had about him having Voldemort’s magic. He thought he already would have if not for the way Draco had draped himself over his back.

He did close his eyes and calm his temper. The words had—struck him. He’d thought they would go on striking. He’d thought he would have to struggle against the natural impulse to forgive his family and admit everything they said about him was true. After all, he’d spent so long thinking the way they thought.

It was nothing like that at all, after his shock at his mother’s initial words. Instead, all he could think about was how something closer to Draco’s words should be coming out of _her_ mouth.

“Draco can make his own decisions,” Harry said, and opened his eyes. Lily flinched when he looked at her. Harry wondered why, when she hadn’t reacted much to anything he did so far. Maybe it was actually at M.H. rearing high to study her throat. “You’re talking as though a betrothal contract means anything without the participation of choice. Draco even went to the trouble to find me, so he was technically still bonding with a Potter. He’s trying to keep to the terms of his honor. What’s honorable about forcing him to marry someone he doesn’t care about, he _can’t_ care about?”

“The only reason he has trouble caring about Dahlia is because of what _you_ did to her.”

“No,” Harry snapped. “Even if my magic affected her somehow, I was a _child_. It would have been accidental magic, just like if I’d broken something you liked—”

“This was affecting _one of our children_!”

Harry blinked. Then he said, “Thank you for making it clear that you don’t consider me one of your children.”

Broken shards of _something_ stirred and ground together in his chest. He supposed regret was part of it, but honestly, not a big part. He’d made the right decision, he was sure, in accepting Draco’s bonding offer, and that was apparently something he’d have to refuse in order to remain his parents’ child.

“You honestly can’t understand the difference between Dahlia and a vase you might have broken?” Lily whispered. She had her arms wrapped around herself, and she was shivering. Harry wondered idly if his magic was escaping control and actually cooling down the room. It felt like that to him, but he knew his impressions might not be that trustworthy. “I can’t believe I gave birth to you.”

Harry closed his eyes. Maybe it had been useless to come here. But the Malfoys had wanted to hear what the Potters said.

“I don’t know what happened to Dahlia,” Harry said, and forced his voice into calm. “Maybe we’ll never know, since it was so long ago now. But I don’t think that has anything to do with our bonding. Draco’s made his decision. I’ve accepted him. I would appreciate it if you would—”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Harry’s eyes flew open again. Yes, that was James, and he was creeping into the room and almost _whispering_. Harry thought it was because of Eric, who was peering around the pillars, but James went on whispering without looking behind him.

“You have to get out of the house before Dahlia sees you,” he said, softly, intensely. “She started crying earlier this afternoon, and she hasn’t been able to stop. This would be the final straw.”

“Good.”

Harry blinked. Even _he_ hadn’t thought Draco would say something like that.

“At least that shows she has some emotions,” Draco continued on blithely. “Not enough to make me want to marry her, but it’s _something_. It means she might be able to open her heart to someone else.”

“You can’t—you can’t not want to marry my daughter.” James had apparently run his hands through his hair, or at least Harry hoped so. Not even _his_ hair looked that messy naturally. “How can you not want to? She’s _innocent_.”

“She is not,” Draco said, and his voice had gone harsh again. “I don’t intend to stand here debating with you. Honestly, this is a courtesy visit. You should know that I’m going to bond with your son. I thought I would be the second one delivering the news, after Dumbledore, but since I’m not, then you should know.”

James turned and stared at Harry. Harry looked back. He had no idea what he expected to see in his father’s face, but it wasn’t anger or hatred. It was just desperation, so thick that Harry could almost feel it coiling around him. Then James shook his head and said, “He’s not my son.”

Draco sighed. “Yes, your wife already expressed that tiresome opinion. If you would just—”

“No,” James said, and his voice was stronger. “He is _not my son_. I hereby disown him. He’s not a Potter.”

Harry gasped. It felt as though a string he had never realized was wrapped around his chest had suddenly snapped. He put his hand up to his wildly beating heart, his twanging breastbone. M.H. lifted his head higher. _What does this mean? Can I eat him?_

 _No_ , Harry hissed back, not seeing the need to keep his Parseltongue quiet with this—this.

“There,” James continued, and stalked a step forwards, looking at Draco and not Harry. “Now you can’t bond with him. If you intend to honor the contract, you have to bond with—marry—a Potter. Now my daughter is the only choice.”

Harry said nothing. He didn’t know if there was anything to say. They’d made so many choices, Draco had sought him out so specifically because he was a Potter and the contract said—

“Then,” Draco said, and his voice was entirely gentle as he braced his hand against Harry’s breastbone and seemed to hold it in place, “fuck the contract.”


	15. Bated Breath

The breath really did seem to have stopped in Harry’s lungs. He felt cold. He might have fallen over, if not for Draco’s hands braced on his chest and back.

Then he heard Draco’s words, and felt as if he could force his lungs to work again. He did. He knew what Draco would say if he doubted himself or remained silent too long: they had won.

Before Harry could open his mouth, though, Lily had cut in, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Do you understand what you’re _saying_ , Malfoy? We’ll _never_ give you the time of day again if you don’t marry Dahlia now. Your honor will disappear. Your friends will make you a laughingstock. Your parents will turn their backs on you.”

“Unlike you,” said Draco, his voice so rich with contempt it sounded calm, “my parents only have one child. And unlike you, they don’t use disowning as a weapon. Threats of it, maybe. Not the actual gesture.” He leaned over Harry and whispered into his ear. “Are you okay?”

Harry nodded, and then whispered back, “Can you lean back a little, so they can see my face? I have something to say to them.”

Draco turned his head. Harry didn’t know for sure what Draco could see in his expression, since he was so close, but whatever it was brought a look of fierce delight to his face. He stroked Harry’s cheek and dropped his hand from his chest, using both arms to encircle Harry’s waist instead.

“I wanted to give you a chance,” Harry told his parents. Well, he supposed they weren’t his parents now. Other than the sudden sensation of unbinding magic inside him, he honestly wasn’t sure how disowning worked. “I wanted to say that you just didn’t understand Draco’s distaste for Dahlia and you didn’t know I was a wizard and you were so scared of Voldemort coming back that you made decisions based on fear.

“But now, I don’t care. You could have figured out I wasn’t a Squib if you _wanted_ to. You could have figured out what happened to Dahlia. You could have told Dumbledore that I wasn’t possessed by Voldemort—”

“What do you call _that,_ then?” James snapped, his finger swinging wildly at Harry. Harry assumed he was pointing at the scar. “A source of Dark magic! A sign that you _were_ possessed by Voldemort! Have you even told Malfoy it moves on its own, sometimes?”

Draco’s fingers curled quickly into the sides of Harry’s waist. Harry moved a little so his hand brushed Draco’s arm and shook his head. “No, because it hasn’t come up. It doesn’t mean he’ll abandon me.”

Draco’s fingers relaxed.

“But you still haven’t been able to tell him the whole truth about yourself.” James’s eyes were wide. “You still haven’t mentioned that scar and the way it _moves_. How are you going to get through that conversation?”

“Like this,” Harry said. He tipped his head back until he could more or less see Draco over his own chin. “Draco, did you know that sometimes my scar moves?”

“No, I didn’t know that.” Draco’s face was tranquil, his voice the one Harry’s mentor had sometimes used when talking about a movie she’d liked. “Is there any pattern to the movements?”

“Not that I’ve ever been able to tell.”

Draco nodded. “Then someday, when we have other, more urgent things settled, we will sit down and figure it out. Would that be acceptable to you?”

The way Draco’s fingers curled into the sensitive skin between Harry’s ribs again said that it would have to be. But Harry had no trouble accepting it. He only nodded, gave Draco a winsome smile, and turned back to his parents to add, “Like that.”

_Or are they my parents now? If they’ve disowned me, I suppose that technically, they don’t have any authority over me anymore, either._

James and Lily stared at each other. If they were telepathic and having some kind of silent conversation, Harry couldn’t tell. He noticed from the corner of his eye that Eric had edged into the room again.

“This is still putting dreams to ruin,” Lily whispered. “Dreams that were never yours to ruin. How can you be so needlessly cruel?”

“Dahlia’s dreams don’t matter to me,” Draco said.

“Nor me,” Harry had to add. “I don’t really know her. I was too young when you exiled me, and I don’t know what kind of girl she’s grown into.”

“Perhaps I should show you, then.”

Harry looked up quickly. Dahlia was standing just behind Eric, between the pillars that framed the room. Her head was bowed a little, and tears streaked her cheeks, and her eyes were dramatically open.

Lily reached out a trembling hand and touched Dahlia’s shoulder as she walked into the room. Harry found himself swallowing. _That_ was the way he would have wished for his mother to touch him, as if she was concerned he would break. Not because he _would_ break. Just that she feared he would, sometimes.

Harry then shook his head. It didn’t matter. Lily wasn’t his mother anymore, and frankly, it was a relief to know he wouldn’t have to feel the guilt over his own lack of love for her in the future.

James apparently thought Harry’s headshake meant something else. “You don’t get to deny Dahlia the chance to tell her story!”

“Let her tell it,” said Draco, his voice so cultured and bored that Harry smiled entirely against his will. “It doesn’t mean anyone is going to care about it.”

Lily’s fingers shook in their resting place on Dahlia’s shoulder. Dahlia raised her head, slowly. Harry watched her face and wondered for a second how Draco could ever have turned away from her to seek him out. She was _pretty_. Plus, there was enough passion blazing in her eyes to light up a whole room.

Of course, Draco had also said she didn’t usually show emotion. Maybe she was less pretty when she was blank-faced.

“All my life,” Dahlia began, her voice quivering, “I only wanted to make people happy. I would lie awake at night and wonder how I could get that. If I gave up some of my sweets to Lilac, or if I obeyed Mum and Dad the next day, or if I did what people told me, then it might happen.”

Draco yawned.

Harry felt a giggle rising up his throat so fast that he thought for a second it’d actually made it out. He swallowed audibly, and Draco leaned his chin on his shoulder and smiled at Dahlia. “Do go on.”

For a second, Harry thought Dahlia would burst into tears again. But then she caught her breath and continued speaking, her eyes lowered, resting on the floor. “I—I wished so hard. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be right.”

“That’s all anyone ever wanted from you, darling,” Lily whispered. Her voice was full of hope and belief and suppressed tears, and Harry felt a wince deep inside, again more from the loss of the kind of mother he wished he could have had than from the loss of Lily herself. “People who _really_ know how to value you will know that you made the sacrifices to protect them.”

“As touching as this is,” Draco remarked, “we’ve got a melodramatic story to listen to.”

James actually pulled out his wand, but Harry aimed his at his fath—former father in response. It seemed James was more afraid of Harry’s alleged Dark magic than anything he’d seen Draco perform, because he froze. Harry nodded without taking his eyes from him, even when Dahlia began to speak again.

“I was—I was so afraid. I wished so hard. I wanted to be acceptable. I wanted to be acceptable to the Malfoys, because otherwise they might not let me marry Draco because I was a Light witch and a half-blood. I wanted to be the epitome of pure-blood manners, because I knew Mrs. Malfoy likes that. I wanted to have honor, because I knew that was important to the contract.” She turned limpid eyes on Draco. “And I wanted to be worthy of the only man I’ve ever loved.”

“You weren’t.”

Harry took Draco’s wrist in a gentle hand. He perfectly understood the impulse to strike back at Dahlia, but the more they did that, the longer they stretched this out.

“But I wanted to be,” Dalia whispered, “and you were the only one it didn’t work with.”

This time, neither Harry nor Draco said anything. Lily and James were saying enough for two people, anyway, whispering into their daughter’s ears and taking her hand.

 _Strange,_ Harry thought as he watched, _that I can think of them as my parents, still, more easily than I can think of Dahlia as my sister._

“I don’t understand.” Dahlia stared at Draco with tragic eyes that made Harry bristle a little. He didn’t have _much_ to be jealous of, not with Draco’s open and undeniable choice, but he felt it prickle his spine. Draco stroked his shoulder, and Harry found it easier to be still. “Why did you choose someone you thought was a Squib? You still wanted to marry a Potter, or you wouldn’t have chosen _him_ at all. Why not someone you—knew, someone who was powerful, someone who worked so hard to be what you liked? What was wrong with _me_?”

Draco looked a little taken aback by the stress on that last word. “You were perfect for someone who was like my mother,” he said. “You couldn’t make yourself into someone who would please both my mother and me.”

“I _should_ have been able to. I thought about it so much. I planned. I wished and wished and _wished_.”

Draco abruptly lifted his head. Harry glanced at him, thinking maybe James had tried to cast a spell or something, but instead, he was watching Dahlia, his eyes narrowed and contemplative.

“So the change that influenced you _was_ magic,” he murmured.

Harry swallowed and felt his scar writhe. James cut in triumphantly, “See! We told you! Harry bewitched her when—”

“Not Harry’s magic,” Draco said. “Dahlia’s.”

*

Draco wanted to shake his head in wonder for not having thought of it before. He had assumed Dahlia was either a lying actor or someone who really was that shallow. He hadn’t thought about her _wishing_ herself into that state, using accidental magic to make something happen that she wanted like she wanted to breathe.

Draco had read all about accidental magic in his private studies with his parents. Hogwarts didn’t cover it, other than explaining that it happened to children before they acquired their wands, for the most part, and were a sign that they weren’t Squibs. Draco wouldn’t be surprised if Harry not showing any accidental magic—except for supposedly enchanting Dahlia—after his encounter with Voldemort was a reason that the Potters had thought he was a Squib.

Of course, his magic hadn’t been accidental. It had been carefully controlled when it belonged to Voldemort, and that didn’t change simply because it had come to dwell with Harry.

But Dahlia had enchanted _herself_ into that state. She had probably started feeling emotions again now because she had realized that her wish hadn’t come true, and that had loosened the grip of that magic on her.

Draco felt a slow smile come to his face as he understood. This was one of the few things that could convince his mother Dahlia was not the perfect match for him, if he phrased it in the right way.

“What are you talking about?” Dahlia asked, her voice rising.

Only because Harry asked the same question in the next moment, his voice much calmer, did Draco bother to answer at all. “You wanted to be perfect for everyone. You wanted it more than you wanted anything else. What do you suppose happened when your magic listened? I never denied that you were strong. Just not strong enough to be pleasing to me.”

Dahlia staggered a step back and stared at him with huge eyes. Draco wondered idly if she’d have found a way to wish herself more power if she’d understood he found that attractive. It had been known to happen with accidental magic.

But then, she had never understood him at all. And that was most of the reason they were here.

_The other part of the reason is that Harry is just better than her in every way._

“That’s not—that can’t be right,” said Lily, shaking her head rapidly as if she was trying to get rid of a cloud of buzzing flies. “Dahlia _can’t_ have wished herself into perfection for your family at four years old. She didn’t even know what marriage into your family meant at that point!”

Draco knew the answer to that one, too, and he was honestly a little annoyed with himself for never thinking of it before. Of course, he needed the knowledge of Dahlia’s accidental magic to unlock the whole mess, but a little thing like that shouldn’t have stopped a Malfoy.

“She didn’t know what marriage meant at that age. But she knew you wanted it. She would have lain awake thinking about it, thinking about how to please you, and that was the way she got shaped. Her magic shaped her.”

Draco paused and waited for them to come to the next obvious conclusion. None of them died. Even Harry had his head tilted back, his eyebrows raised as if he didn’t understand what Draco was getting at.

“That means,” Draco said, very slowly, “that there’s a _reason_ you think she’s perfect and I ought to be happy to marry her even if I dislike her. Her magic shaped her into exactly what you wanted, _and_ it reached out and shaped you, too. There’s no way a child that young could have not messed up sometimes, no matter what her magic did. So it changed your perceptions to make it easier for her to please you. Lowered your expectations.” He smiled a little. “No wonder you were so willing to turn on your other child who seemed to be a threat to her.”

James staggered as if Draco had been holding the end of a long rope attached to his waist and had released it. “No,” he said, but it had no voice behind it.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense with listening to her about how hard she wished for this.”

“No.”

“Deny it all you like.” Draco shrugged. “It probably worked better with you because you’re Light and I’m Dark. My mother either resisted it and Dahlia’s magic worked harder on Dahlia herself instead, or was of the mind to be pleased by what she saw on the surface and not look further until Dahlia was older. Then, of course, she would have known better how to act.”

“All of this is _speculation_ ,” James said, his voice so full of stress that it cracked. “You—you’re pretending to know the truth of something that _no one_ can know the truth of, you think—”

“Oh, but it makes sense of so much! Why you were willing to exile Harry as a child. Why you didn’t look into whether he was a Squib or possessed of Voldemort’s magic or what. All you knew was that he was a threat to your beloved child. Dahlia wanted to be loved. Her magic made you love her.” Draco paused to think and looped his arms more firmly around Harry’s waist. “It is ironic, I suppose, that she did to you what you accused Harry of doing to her, but I don’t think it’s much more to be concerned with than that.”

All the while, delight hummed in the back of his mind. Yes, if he presented this the right way, his parents would be disgusted that the Potters had let themselves be enchanted and fooled, and much less likely to insist that he marry their “perfect pure-blood” daughter. Especially once they realized the daughter was really prone to fits of sobbing and jealousy of the brother she hadn’t seen in ten years.

“Draco?”

Harry’s voice. Draco let himself be lured out of his thoughts and looked into his eyes. “How sure are you of this?” Harry whispered.

“Sure in the sense that it _makes_ sense.” Draco shrugged a little. “That doesn’t mean that I can know for certain without some tests. But it makes sense, right?”

Harry shivered a little and let out a small sigh. Draco raised his eyebrows, and Harry whispered, “I was almost sure that I didn’t affect her that way. But not completely sure.”

Draco smiled. “Then this has more purpose than just embarrassing her and your former family,” he said, and stroked the side of Harry’s neck. “That makes everything worth it.”

“You’re unbelievable,” said Lily, sounding numb. “You’re _happy_ about this?”

“Happy in the sense that I get to bond who I want, of course.” Draco lifted his left shoulder in a graceful shrug. “And yes, I do think that it was worthwhile to tease this out and let Dahlia realize she has no chance of marrying me.” He looked at his former betrothed, and waited to see if something like remorse assaulted him.

Nothing happened. Dahlia only looked at him with blank, tearless eyes now.

“This—couldn’t have really happened,” James whispered. “Could it? What if it’s _true_?” He blinked at Lily. “We need to talk. We _really_ need to talk.”

“It doesn’t matter to you that he doesn’t want to marry me?” Dahlia asked.

James’s eyes glazed and he started to open his mouth. Then he snapped it shut and said, “My God. He’s _right_.” He reached out and gently took his wife’s arm. “We have to talk. Dahlia, come on.”

Draco saw her hesitate. But even at this late stage, obeying her parents was ingrained. She followed them.

Eric stepped back into the room and stood staring at them. Then he squinted his eyes and said, “You’re strange. But I like you.”

Draco wasn’t sure if that was addressed to him or Harry. Probably Harry, though, since Eric did know him, a little. “Thank you,” Harry said a second later, because he’d probably come to the same conclusion.

“Come back,” said Eric, and turned and followed his parents and Dahlia, too.

Harry craned his neck back. Draco looked down at him, and Harry kissed him on the nose.

“I’m free, now.”

Draco nodded. “And I think I know how we might convince my parents.”

They walked out of the home that would never belong to Harry now, linked together, to find one that would.


	16. Downtime

 

"You look as though you smashed into a wall on your broom."

Harry smiled a little, not opening his eyes. He was lying on the bed in the Malfoy house Draco had enchanted for their safety, letting one arm dangle. His hand rested on the back of M.H.'s head. M.H. had been mostly silent since they left the Potters' house, but he objected every time Harry's hand moved.

"Did you hear me?"

"I did. I just wasn't sure if it was worth responding to," Harry murmured, and opened his eyes to lazily stretch his free arm out. Draco caught his hand and kissed the palm.

"How do you feel, really?"

"Light. I mean...I spent all these years afraid that I really did influence Dahlia for the worse, and knowing it wasn't me makes me feel better. My parents rejected me, and that should hurt more than it does, maybe. But I lived so long without them."

"And they don't deserve to have you, and they don't deserve any mourning you would do over them," Draco said, with a slight, satisfied smile, sitting down on the bed next to Harry. His hand skimmed over Harry's shirt and down to his bare stomach. Harry shut his eyes as he felt Draco's fingers dance on his skin.

"What about your parents, though?" He managed to ask the question in what was not quite a gasp. "Since they said they would only give their consent to our bonding if we got--the Potters' consent?"

"That's something we need to think about, yes. But on the whole, I'm as satisfied as you are with this afternoon's work."

Draco's voice had shifted. Harry opened his eyes to look at him, wondering. Draco might have some new plan that he needed to pay attention to.

Instead, Draco simply bent over him, his eyes so deep and bright that Harry could only apply the word _smolder_ to them. Harry swallowed, and ignored the urge to back away. He also ignored M.H.'s complaint as he moved his hand away from the snake's head and to the back of Draco's neck.

_Mating is not as important as me!_

Harry started to reply to that, but Draco's mouth was on his, pressing down until he opened his lips with a gasp and allowed Draco's tongue entrance. Draco stroked his hand down Harry's side, murmuring in something that might have been delight, and then his fingers splayed out under Harry's shirt.

Harry reached down to remove it, but Draco shook his head.

"I just want to touch you through your clothes."

It seemed strange when Draco had wanted so badly to take them _off_ other times, but then, they were both in strange moods. Harry lay back willingly and let Draco touch him under his shirt, and over his shirt, and on the side of his neck, and hard enough on his eyelashes that he had to close his eyes under the pressure...

In no time his breath and his pulse were both racing. Harry shifted restlessly to the side, his neck arching back. Draco said nothing, but touched his inner thighs with quick, light taps, just a fingertip and no more pressing down for a second. Then he suddenly pressed down harder and yanked his hand up.

Harry hissed and grabbed it. And opened his eyes to find Draco smiling at him in what looked like pure, joyous delight.

"You were doing that to see how long it would take me to crack, right?"

"Well, yes. I know I want you, but you haven't always shown that you want _me_ \--"

Harry twisted in the way that he'd learned to do to get away from some of the more venomous snakes he treated, and Draco fell back on the bed with a shout. Harry heaved himself onto Draco's chest in response and yanked at his shirt. It got tangled up around Draco's shoulders and arms and collarbone, which produced a lot of indignant noises.

That was okay. Harry took the opportunity to bend down and kiss Draco's chest. It was pale usually, but flushing right now, and Harry smiled at the sight of it. He smiled at the sight of everything, really. He'd never thought he'd get to have this, and he'd thought about it all the time even as he tried to avoid thinking about it and avoid resenting it.

Now he could think about different things, about having a partner and a consort who would always be with him. And he could feel the resentment because he knew it wasn't his fault, that his magic wasn't evil.

_Not that I don't have better things to think about than the Potters and Dahlia._

Harry ran his hand over Draco's chest, pausing when he got near his nipples. Draco had tensed and seemed to be holding his breath. _What is this about?_

He tweaked Draco's nearest nipple as hard as he could.

Draco arched his back with another shout, somewhat muffled by the cloth still tight around his face. Harry grinned and pinched his nipple again, then eased the shirt the rest of the way off while Draco was still huffing and swearing.

"What was that for?" Draco snarled when he could see Harry's face again.

Harry shrugged. "I wanted to."

Draco stared at him with his lips slightly parted, which only made Harry want to kiss him. When he did it, Draco grabbed Harry and they wrestled for who got to lie on top of who, Harry laughing and breathless and his hands flailing, Draco trying to kiss or tweak every part of Harry's exposed skin.

Draco finally won, at least enough to lie on Harry's chest and hold his hands down and pant into his mouth. Harry tried to lick Draco's lips, but Draco moved his head just far enough back that Harry couldn't reach them. Harry made a little disappointed sound, and Draco's eyes shone.

“I think that’s shown me,” he said, although he was already running a hand down Harry’s side as if he wanted to start another round. “You’re not usually that aggressive, are you?”

“I never had anyone to be aggressive with before.”

Draco propped himself up on one elbow and stared down into Harry’s face. “I wasn’t talking about that and you know it.”

Harry hadn’t known it, actually, but it didn’t take much to realize what Draco meant. “You’re still afraid I’m going to go back and forgive my family.”

“I _trust_ you. And you said you weren’t going to forgive them.”

“But part of you is afraid of it anyway.”

Draco didn’t answer.

Harry leaned forwards enough to kiss him on the nose. “I promise, I won’t. They can come and talk to me if they want, and I’ll probably listen. And I’m a little worried about Eric—and Lilac,” he had to add. He’d actually met her, unlike Eric, but she’d only been four when he left. She must have changed a lot. “And I’d be interested to know what Dumbledore means to do next.”

“But you’re going to fight, no matter what happens.”

“Whatever there is to fight. Yes. Especially,” and Harry tried to lower his voice and be seductive, even though he wasn’t really sure how, “if I’m fighting to keep you.”

That finally made Draco smile, and he said, “You _do_ deserve a reward.” He let Harry’s arms and chest go, but evaded the grab Harry immediately made for him, instead crawling down Harry’s body and gently stroking the cloth over his erection. Harry gasped and arched his hips, and Draco pulled his robes open and his pants down in almost the same motion.

“You don’t _have_ to leave my clothes on, you know—”

“I want to.”

Those words shut Harry up as they must have shut Draco up when he said them. So he lay there, and watched in a kind of sunlit daze as Draco took out his cock and bent his head over it.

This…he had never thought he would have this, no. It had been forbidden to him by what he’d done to Dahlia and the weight of the evil he carried.

And now both of those were gone, of no more weight than the bones of a bird, and still he’d never thought he could have it.

_Why?_

But those thoughts vanished at the first suction of Draco’s mouth around him. Harry grabbed for things. The blankets, the sheets, Draco’s hair, his own feet. Pleasure raced through him and nearly crested like the tide already.

“No,” he blurted.

Draco drew his head back and gave him a look of calm disbelief. “You’re _really_ turning down someone getting ready to suck you.”

“No! I mean—no, I don’t want to come yet.” Harry shut his eyes and tried to tell himself he would _not_ come as soon as he got in Draco’s mouth, he _would not_.

“Oh.” Draco’s voice had deepened, and his fingers lightly stroked Harry’s shaft, up and down, back and forth in a tingling tease that made Harry sigh. “Do tell me when you think you’ll be ready, as long as it’s soon.”

Harry didn’t need all that long to reel himself back from the edge. After all, he’d had time to get used to the idea now, which he hadn’t when Draco suddenly introduced him to the delights of a blowjob.

“Okay,” he whispered.

Draco moved in slowly, checking with one eye aimed upwards, as if he thought Harry would temperamentally change his mind again. But Harry didn’t, and the sheer pull of the sensation drowned him, and this time, he surrendered to and welcomed the pleasure.

Draco stroked the sides of his shaft again, and the licking, flickering warmth rose to Harry’s balls.

He was going to get to have this for the rest of his life, no matter what happened.

Draco’s eyes gleamed up at him in between strands of pale hair, and Harry tried to touch them, shaking. He was too far away, and sitting up made a surge of sensation rocket to his groin that dropped him straight back again, gasping.

He needed—he needed Draco.

Draco around him, with him, playing beside him and with him, Draco supporting him even when he had no support from his family. In his incoherent brain, the sensation of Draco’s mouth around him mingled with the feeling of Draco’s hands locked around his waist as they faced down his family.

It was the memory more than the sucking that made him come, in the end. But Harry, his thoughts streaked with pleasure, wasn’t sure he should tell Draco that. He came and he came and he came, and for now, that was surely enough satisfaction for the both of them.

Harry made what he was sure was an undignified noise as he spent, and Draco made the same noise back as he swallowed and wiped his cheeks. Harry stared at him. Draco laughed a little and touched his hip with one sticky hand.

“What, no one in your dreams ever swallowed?”

“I never dreamed of something that felt half as good as _that_.”

Draco’s smile was small and smug. “Right answer,” he said, and climbed up, and settled himself between Harry’s thighs. Harry immediately reached for him and tried to think about how he was going to match up to Draco’s prowess, but Draco stopped him with a snort. “Later, when you’re not exhausted and you have time to learn from me. We have _time_.”

They did, Harry realized, and he fell back and spread his thighs a little and let Draco rut between them, against skin and cloth both, sighing as he went. His eyes were closed and his mouth pursed in the fullness of his pleasure. His straining back was right there, for Harry’s hands to grasp and hold, and his breath whistled in and out, in and out.

_So good. So good to have him here._

Harry stared at Draco’s closed eyes, and wished there was more he could do to show Draco how glad he was.

At the moment, though, he honestly didn’t think so. Draco’s breathing had sped up and he acted like he was about to come any minute, and what could Harry add to that pleasure?

Oh. Right.

He waited until Draco was trembling right on the edge—and how wondrous was it that he could _recognize_ that in someone?—and then whispered into his ear, “Thank you.”

Draco almost exploded. He dropped straight down while he was still spurting, and stared at Harry with wide eyes. Harry chuckled and gently rubbed his cheek with one finger.

“You’ve just brought me so much,” he said, and Draco turned his head to the side as if he was listening, which was all the encouragement Harry needed to continue. “A lover when I believed I would never have one. Happiness when I didn’t really have it. And freedom.”

Draco lowered his head and said nothing for long seconds. Harry just stayed quiet, though. He no longer feared that Draco was going to lean back and say something that meant they would split apart. He only had to wait until Draco found his voice.

*

Draco had been raised to believe that _he_ would be the giver of generous gifts. Of course any spouse or consort coming into the Malfoy family should feel honored, not the other way around. And everyone wanted to be friends with a Malfoy, and everyone wanted their favor, and everyone would fawn on him.

He had believed that for so long that it took him some time to realize that chains had collapsed inside his head, too.

He finally swallowed and said, “You know that we’re going to have a long struggle against Dumbledore. And maybe the Unspeakables, if he can persuade them to support him.”

Harry only raised his eyebrows in a gesture that Draco snorted at. Harry must have copied it from him. “I know that. I still think it’s worthwhile challenging my family and getting me free. We can face Dumbledore together.”

“You don’t know how powerful he is, how much political influence he commands—what are you grinning at?”

“I was just wondering what would happen if it turned out that people learned he’d been wrong, and condemned an innocent child to suffer for crimes that weren’t crimes at all. And Voldemort’s magic isn’t Voldemort’s.”

Draco nodded. “It—it might not bring him down. I’m not sure anything could do that. But it would damage his reputation. That’s for sure.”

Harry nodded back, face aglow. “That’s fine. All I really want is to make sure that he won’t keep hovering in the background and causing trouble for us.” He hesitated for a moment, and his hand clasped Draco’s wrist. “There’s the issue of your family, too, of course. What will they do since we didn’t get the Potters’ approval?”

Draco shrugged. “They still won’t disown me. They don’t have three other children to carry the family name the way the Potters do. And I don’t care much about other threats they could make to me.”

“I do,” Harry said, firm as a diamond. “I don’t want you hurt. And I don’t want your parents hovering in the background like Dumbledore could do, either. I don’t want their shadow to fall over us.”

“You’re being a bit melodramatic, Harry,” Draco murmured, choosing to concentrate on the shine of the bonding bracelet on Harry’s wrist. Otherwise, he knew his eyes would probably be wet. “Their disapproval can’t cast that kind of shadow on me anymore, not since I became a man and realized they had limitations.”

“Well, it might not for you, but this is me,” Harry said inarguably. “What would you do if the Potters hadn’t disowned me and they were trying to get me to come back into the family now that they know they were wrong about Dahlia?”

“Don’t you dare.”

“You should see the expression on your face. But I feel the same way you would about that.” Harry reached up and gently touched his eyelids, forcing his eyes closed. “Let me protect you, too, Draco, Please.”

Draco nodded and bowed his head. Harry shivered in surprise as Draco kissed his shoulder. “As you will,” Draco whispered. “And I have a good idea of someone we might contact, since we’ll need help spreading the story to the papers.”

“Who?”

“Tell me, Harry,” Draco said, and felt a surge of tremendous warmth pass through him as he pictured the way the Potters would look when they heard the news, “how well do you remember your godfather?”


	17. The Wild Child

“Draco, I wish to know where you are now.”

Draco had awoken to find several owls sitting outside the house and glaring at him. His parents hadn’t been able to send him a message through the wards, but it did confirm that they had lost patience. So Draco had lowered the wards around the fireplace in the drawing room and decided to use that to Floo them.

Draco spent a few minutes straightening his sleeves. His father stared through the fire, seemingly impassive, but Draco knew him, and Lucius’s fingers would be curling at his sides, out of sight. Draco finished the adjusting and gave Lucius a bland smile. “Somewhere safe.”

“You failed to secure the consent of the Potters.”

“Did they write to you?” Draco asked, genuinely curious. He didn’t know if the Potters were even now persuading themselves that they weren’t at fault, or whether they would have reached out to Mother and Father and told them about Dahlia’s magic.

“They did. They told us what their daughter did. They also told us that your _Harry_ has been disowned.”

Draco leaned forwards until his knuckles rested on the hearth. “Call him my betrothed if you can’t handle his name. But never put that weight of contempt behind the word again. Do you understand me, Father?”

“You—have fallen for him.”

“Yes. Isn’t that what happened to you and Mother, all those years ago? And your marriage was by contract, just as mine was arranged to be.”

Lucius was silent; Draco could sense his struggle. He had thought, for a while now, that his parents’ notions were incoherent. They wanted too many different things to subsume them all beneath a single smooth surface, whatever they said. It remained to be seen what divergent desire would win out this time.

Apparently, wanting to prove themselves right did. Lucius leaned forwards in response and said, “A Malfoy is always to be the one bestowing honor and favor. You are not to _abase_ yourself to the one you choose, whether consort or spouse.”

“You were in the same house with him. You know he’s a powerful Dark wizard and a Parselmouth. I’m not abasing. I’ve chosen, and he’s chosen me. And that _is_ an honor, Father. You won’t convince me otherwise.”

Lucius blinked several times. Draco wondered quietly if the cognitive dissonance—a Muggle concept he had learned about and found useful when it came to describing the Potter contract—had started yet. On the one hand, Draco was not behaving appropriately for a Malfoy. On the other hand, Mother had always said that he should try to treat Dahlia with respect, and chided him when he could not.

“You should have married Dahlia Potter.”

“Why?”

“The strength of her magic, to enchant her parents and perhaps several other people—”

Draco laughed, and Lucius flinched back. Draco got his voice under control, but he only barely managed to choke out, “And? You’d rather I risk getting _myself_ enchanted than give up your precious contract? Where would the Malfoy pride be then?”

“Where it is if you refuse the contract and refuse to marry the person you should have?” His father’s voice was bitter enough that Draco knew it would be poison if he had actually tried to swallow it. “You will dishonor us, Draco, so thoroughly that our fortunes will suffer. Honorable pure-bloods will have nothing to do with us.”

“And what will they think of the Potters? So weak as to exile a son who wasn’t a Squib, and able to be taken advantage of by a daughter they never realized was enchanting them—”

“They will hardly spread that story abroad. But everyone will see that _you_ are marrying the exiled son.”

“Bonding, Father. It’s called ‘bonding.’”

Lucius gave a snort of utter despair; Draco knew that because nothing except utter despair could have got his father to snort in the first place. “You should listen to me. The Potters are hardly going to spread that story.”

Draco smiled and said nothing. He was a little curious to see if his father could draw the obvious conclusion from his silence. Once Draco would have said that of course he could, without hesitating, but his parents had proved less perceptive and intelligent than he had once thought them.

“ _You_ are going to spread that story?”

“I am,” Draco said. “I think they deserve to suffer for turning their backs on the most wonderful child they have.”

Lucius shook his head, and shook it again. The only memory Draco had of his father looking the way he did now was when Draco was very young and had spat bathwater in Lucius’s ear.

“But—it will make you look just as bad. That you are breaking honor and the betrothal contract. That you intend to _bond_ with a child who has been disowned. And you know disownment cannot be reversed.”

“Will it make me look bad, Father? Or will it make the Potters look _appallingly_ bad, frightened, weak? They didn’t bother to recognize Harry’s potential for themselves. They blindly followed Dumbledore when he said that Harry must be the Dark Lord reborn. They gave up a child who had done nothing wrong, and someone who could have been a powerful heir of their line and even a link to the Dark families. They violated all the precepts that they’re always saying they follow. Tolerance and acceptance and _forgiveness_. They practiced none of those.”

Lucius spent a moment licking his lips. “You intend to bring them down.”

“I don’t know if this will utterly destroy them.” _I only hope so._ “I _know_ that it’ll tarnish their reputation, and that’s what I want. I want them to _suffer_ , Father. For what they did, for what they didn’t do, for being so stupid.” Draco paused. “Are you thinking that you might suffer, too, for linking yourself with them?”

Lucius tapped his fingers on something Draco couldn’t see from his position in the flames, and held his silence. But Draco had learned how to do the same thing literally at his father’s knee, and sometimes turned over it. He waited, and Lucius finally shook his head, slowly.

“We wanted to honor the contract. We believed we had done the wrong thing when they characterized your _bonded_ as a Squib, because their family lost the prestige of housing the Dark Lord’s destroyer. But we always intended to honor the contract.”

“Why?”

“Because that is _what we are_.” Lucius sometimes acted more polished and aloof than he actually was, but Draco thought that act wasn’t one half as effective as the natural way he sometimes stiffened, like right now, his face glittering like a metal mask. “Honorable pure-bloods, who follow the traditions regardless of whether other people follow them. _That_ is the reputation you are trying to damage.”

Draco leaned forwards, his hands braced on the hearth. “What would make us look better right now? Honoring the letter of the contract, and insisting that I marry a Potter who’s been lying all her life and who’s a _Light_ witch besides? Or honoring the spirit, and bonding me to the powerful child you originally contracted for? The one who not only defeated the Dark Lord, but conquered his magic?”

Lucius vanished behind one of his impenetrable masks that meant not even Draco could tell what he was thinking. Draco tapped his fingers on the hearth again, and waited.

“You intend to say that.”

“Yes.”

“You have proof of that.”

“Yes.”

Lucius still spent time looking past Draco at some feature of the room he probably couldn’t see from the positioning of his head within the flames. Draco held his impatience in check; he had to accept that it was probably difficult for his father to adjust from one kind of honor to another.

“It would be wonderful if it could be done,” Lucius said softly, and then refocused on Draco as tightly as a grip on a broom. “But there remains the problem of what other pure-bloods would say about our reputation.”

“I intend to rehabilitate our reputation. I’m the one who found Harry and brought him home. _I’m_ the one who thought to look for him in the first place. The younger generation of Malfoys—”

“Could be seen as degenerate.”

“Is, in fact, in the first stages of creating a new kind of honor,” Draco said. “Honoring the boy who still has some renown in Britain, you know, as the destroyer of Voldemort. Following the spirit _and_ the letter of the old contract, the one made before I was betrothed to Dahlia.” He leaned forwards so far that he was honestly afraid of falling into the fire, but he had to make this point. “If contracts can be changed once, they can again.”

“That was a mutually-agreed upon change. I doubt the Potters would agree to this one.”

Draco smiled. “Contact them after our story has appeared and ask.”

Lucius frowned harder. Then he said, “We did not teach you to use these kinds of tactics with pure-bloods.”

“But you taught me to use them.” Draco could only shrug in the face of his father’s chiding look. “To value what I wanted, and go after it at all costs, and fight for it. Even to value the kind of love that can spring unexpectedly. I know you told me at _least_ once that you were prepared to endure your marriage.”

His father closed his eyes for a second. Then he said, “Yes. That is true.”

And Draco would never get more explicit permission than that, probably, but he didn’t _need_ it. He inclined his head, making sure his expression was more calm than gloating, and said, “Thank you, Father. I promise that we won’t embarrass you.”

“More than the notion of you not marrying Dahlia Potter embarrasses us already?”

“You know the article is coming out. It’s your choice how to respond. I think the reporters will be more interested in questioning me and Harry and the Potters than you or Mother anyway.”

Lucius only gazed into Draco’s face for a long, silent moment. Then he nodded and said, “I hope that you _have_ found someone to love, Draco. Even if you went about it in an inconvenient—dishonorable—way.”

 _Perhaps as close to be a blessing as we’ll get, too._ Draco nodded. “Thank you, Father.”

Lucius was gone from the Floo without a farewell. Draco leaned back so Harry could put his hand on his shoulder, and tilted his head until he was looking at Harry upside-down.

“Would he really have refused to speak if he knew I was in the room listening?”

“Father needs delicate handling, sometimes. I wasn’t ready to assume that your presence was something he could ignore.”

Harry only nodded, thoughtfully, as though saying that he understood but didn’t agree. Draco reached out, smiling, and scooped his hands up, kissing the backs of them.

“Ready to meet your godfather?”

“He _did_ answer your owl?”

“With a Howler. The charms on the house keep anyone from hearing the screaming who’s not actually in the room where it explodes,” Draco explained. He _didn’t_ explain that he’d practically run from the bedroom into the bathroom so Black’s cursing wouldn’t wake Harry up, but from the narrowing of his eyes and the tightening of his hands on Draco’s, Harry had figured it out. “After all the swearing and the accusing me of being in this to sacrifice you in a ritual to resurrect Voldemort—”

Harry choked.

“—he said that he and your parents haven’t been close for a long time, he always disagreed about the way they treated you, and he wants to meet us for lunch in Diagon Alley in…about forty-five minutes.”

Harry glanced at the clock and swallowed. Then he shook his head. “This is ridiculous. I haven’t even been wearing formal robes for most of my life, and now I’m wondering if I need to dress up to meet my godfather.”

“There are some Blacks that would have been true of, but don’t bother for this one. He wouldn’t appreciate it.”

*

“Harry!”

The voice turned heads all down the alley; it was a huge bellow with more than a hint of a bark to it. Harry found himself standing closer to Draco than he’d meant to. Then again, a loud-voiced, tall man with a wild glint in his eyes, who you didn’t remember at all, striding down the alley and sweeping you up into his arms would have that effect on a lot of people.

 _At least, I think it would,_ Harry decided, a little dizzy with lack of air when Sirius finally released him. _God, I hope I don’t say anything stupid._

“Your eyes are brighter than Lily’s ever were, and your hair is messier than James’s,” said Sirius, with a fierce grin. “ _Good_.”

“Er, okay,” Harry echoed back. He knew his resemblance to his parents, but he didn’t understand where Sirius was coming from by mentioning it.

Sirius laughed and swung an arm around his shoulders, nodding to Draco with a slight _crunch_ of his teeth that Harry hoped didn’t mean they were going to get into a fight. “Come on. I know a great place to eat. I did the owner a favor and he lets me eat there for free. And I’ll pay for your food.”

“Not much of a friend, if he makes others pay,” Harry thought he heard Draco mutter, but either Sirius didn’t hear it or he chose to ignore it. Harry found himself parading down the middle of Diagon Alley more or less against his will.

Sirius had a way of making people get out of his path, though. He simply elbowed people, or trampled on their feet, or walked straight ahead as if they weren’t there and made _them_ dodge, or snapped an insult that seemed to fit into the flow of the stories he was sharing about Hogwarts, stories of pranks and the Marauders sneaking around the school. Harry smiled now and then, but the burning questions lodged in the back of his mind gave off more heat and light than any stories of James Potter’s childhood could.

_Did you really always disapprove? Why didn’t you come find me? What made you decide that it was okay to send Draco a Howler but also want to meet me?_

They ended up in a pub at the corner of Diagon Alley and a darker one that Draco frowned at. It had a sign above it so dingy that Harry couldn’t read it, only see a snaking, curving line that looked like a dragon’s tail. And then Sirius hustled him inside and howled for someone named “Marcos,” and Harry barely had a chance to breathe or look around before someone else came roaring forwards.

“Sirius! When did you decide to drag your lazy fucking self out of bed and grace my fine establishment?”

Marcos was taller than Sirius, with a black beard that looked as if he was longer than he was tall—odd in contrast to his ash-grey hair. He gave Harry and Draco a casual glance, nodded, and slapped Sirius on the back hard enough to nearly knock him face-first into one of the small, round tables. Sirius came up laughing, luckily.

“When I learned that I had a godson who wasn’t a Squib, and who came back!”

Marcos spun around easily on one heel to stare at Harry. “This the kid?”

“Yep. He has magic, he’s been disowned by Lily and James, and he’s engaged to be bonded to one of those rubbish Malfoys,” said Sirius cheerfully. “So. Can we have lunch?”

“All of you for free!” Marcos roared, and clapped his hands. A noise like a gong came from somewhere behind a door that looked, to Harry, as if fire and acid had scarred it. “Now that you’re here, kid, Sirius will stop moaning on and on about how he failed you and he should have done something else to help you. And sobbing maudlin tears and drinking the kind of whisky that makes him vomit all over my tables. That’s worth a free lunch.”

Harry found himself sitting down much the same way he’d found himself walking down Diagon Alley, and Draco barely managed to sit down in a chair next to him before Sirius took it. Sirius only shrugged as if that didn't matter and leaned forwards, eyes fastened eagerly on Harry.

“So. You want to know where I _was_ all those years.”

“Yes. Um—that would be a good beginning.”

Sirius nodded. “James and I started drifting apart not long after his marriage, really. He wanted to marry Lils and settle down and have kids, fine. But he got all _pure-blood_ about it. That betrothal contract, honestly. _He_ had no idea what his kid would be like or what the Malfoy kid would be like! At least you look like you’ve got all your eyes and limbs in the right places,” he said as an aside to Draco. “And he got all stuffy when I questioned him. And he kept insisting that society and reputation and all _that_ shit was important. I lost my best friend to adulthood.” Sirius shook his head sadly.

“So what happened when you thought I was a Squib?”

“I thought they would find a Muggle couple to adopt you,” said Sirius baldly. “That’s what my family would have done—well, okay, a _variation_ of what my family would have done, which was dump the Squib child on a doorstep last generation and leave them to die of exposure the one before and use the Killing Curse before _that_.”

Harry flinched. Sirius sighed. “Look—I’m coming on a little strong, I reckon. You don’t remember me at all?”

Harry shook his head. He had a few dim memories from early childhood that might be Sirius, but he couldn’t be certain they were. He had tried to forget those things so hard the forgetfulness had more or less taken.

“Well. Then we’ll talk at a slower pace, and you can find everything out from the beginning.” Sirius sat up and smiled. “And we’ll eat. What do you want for lunch?”


	18. Planning the Attack

Draco ate his lunch—delicate slivers of fish and chicken in a salad of spinach, berries and candied flowers placed here and there; much better food than he would have expected of a pub like this—and considered Black. Black hadn’t stopped talking to Harry about his exploits with James Potter at Hogwarts. Apparently there was a mutual, silent agreement they would wait until after lunch to discuss why he had abandoned Harry.

Draco wondered about that, and also what kind of influence Black would be on Harry. His tale of losing his best friend to adulthood was plausible enough, but it made Draco concerned about how adult _Black_ was.

Luckily, Harry seemed to share some of his wonder and concern. He pressed back towards Draco, one elbow resting on his knee, eyes bright and skeptical. Draco smiled at him and nudged Harry’s plate, a mess of a sandwich with butter and jam that Black had insisted he _had_ to try, towards him.

Harry smiled a little and began to eat.

“—And _that’s_ the way that we made Severus Snape hate us forever,” Black finished with a grin that revealed bits of fruit stuck in his teeth. Draco thought about pointing it out, but he knew what kind of reaction he would get. Black changed moods in the next second anyway, almost Vanishing the grin. “So, you want to know why I never came to get you?”

Harry nodded and jerkily reached for the butterbeer that Marcos had brought them. Draco touched his arm for a second, silently.

“I didn’t know what James and Lily were doing for a while.” Black scowled at the wall behind Harry. “I kept waiting for them to adopt you out to a Muggle family. And I know Muggles want babies, because I watch them sometimes and they’re always talking about that. The older you got, the less likely it seemed. But I didn’t know what they _were_ doing.

“Finally, I went over and asked one day. James was so startled that he let me in.

“He told me that they’d found out you had Voldemort’s magic.” Black glanced at Draco and seemed disappointed that he didn’t jump at the name. “That you weren’t _suitable_ for their purposes. No one else could adopt you, because they might be corrupted. No one was safe around you except maybe another Squib. They were looking for Squibs, but not looking very hard. And, of course, no precious Malfoy could marry you.”

“Bond,” Draco said, with a small smile.

Black leaned forwards, his face hard and shining. “I don’t know what changed, but—”

“What changed is that I despise Dahlia Potter,” Draco interrupted coolly. “I learned of Harry’s existence from gossip I wasn’t aware of and forced the Potters to confess to me what they’d done to him. Farmed him out to a Parselmouth Squib, was the answer. And Harry is a powerful Dark wizard. I’m going to bond him. You don’t need to worry about _that_.”

“I can worry about—wait. James never talked about what he’d done with Harry in public. How did _you_ find out?”

“I used Veritaserum on him and his wife.”

Black looked at him with his lips almost _trembling_. Draco sat up a little. Maybe he would defend his friend even though he hadn’t seen him for years. Draco reached for his wand under the table.

Then Black let loose with a great _whoop_ of what Draco realized was laughter, not yelling. He pounded the table with one fist and nearly spilled Harry’s drink and then leaned back and went on laughing until the chair shook.

“No mourning!” yelled Marcos from the open door.

“No mourning here!” Black snapped in return, and focused his eyes on Draco. There was something like respect in them now, but respect was the last emotion Draco had thought his confession would inspire, so he held still. “You _are_ going to be good for Harry. His father would never teach him the flexible morals you need to be a Marauder, so you’ll have to do.”

“Marauder?”

“Weren’t you _listening_?” Black reached across the table to flick his fingers against Harry’s temple, or he would have, but Draco caught his wrist. Black leaned back in his chair, grinning and unoffended. “The Marauders were what James and Peter and Remus and I called ourselves in school.”

“ _Pettigrew_ was one of you?”

Black’s face cooled and darkened like lava. “Yeah. It was one reason that James and Lily trusted him around you at all. And Dumbledore. No one knew he was a Death Eater.” He shrugged the mood off, and grinned again. “But he’s in prison now, and he didn’t understand what happened that night, but neither did anyone else, and here you are, a wizard instead of a Squib! Isn’t it _wonderful_?”

“I think we both still want to hear more about why you never tried to find Harry,” Draco interjected. “Or take him out of the awful situation with his family, since you knew about it.”

Black grimaced and tugged on his hair hard enough that Draco wondered he wasn’t bald. “I yelled at James and threatened him with trying to get custody of Harry. I tried, too. I went to the Wizengamot and everything. But there are laws on the books that are, like, from before the Ministry was a Ministry. Pure-blood family tradition codified into law. They say that a Squib can’t be adopted unless his parents willingly give him up. Most of the time, that was no problem, but James and Lily didn’t want to. And otherwise, Squibs remain under the control of their family for life. They essentially _don’t_ come of age. I fought, but there was nothing I could do. And then James cast spells that meant I couldn’t even approach the house, let alone try to communicate with anyone in it. My Floo calls were automatically refused and my owls turned away. I tried to sneak in in my Animagus form, but they’d even thought of _that_.” Black gave a low whine of remorse, which told Draco something about what his Animagus form probably was. “I tried to ambush you when you were outside, but they never took you anywhere. I’m sorry, pup.”

Harry looked dazed. Draco had to know more, although he squeezed Harry’s hand reassuringly under the table to let him know he could interrupt if he wanted to. “And when you heard Harry had been exiled?”

“They wouldn’t tell me _where_!” Black uttered the last word in a roar that made Marcos poke his head out of the kitchen again. Black lowered his voice promptly. “I sent owls to you. They all came back. I don’t think they hid you under the name of Harry Potter, or maybe you were some place that wouldn’t take them.”

“Lilian kept me in South America for a few years,” Harry said softly. “The most distant part of the Brazilian and then the Peruvian jungles. Sometimes we got visitors to the little Squib community we lived in who said even a Patronus couldn’t have reached them there.”

Black nodded and slammed his hand against the table. Luckily, Harry had his butterbeer in his hand already, and Draco had finished his own drink. “I thought you were dead. Or they’d given you to someone who knew about me and had been told to refuse all contact with me.”

“Maybe they told Lilian. I don’t know.”

Draco rubbed his thumb gently across the back of Harry’s hand. “Who was Lilian?”

“Lilian Rosier. My mentor.” Harry rubbed his finger down the neck of the bottle instead of against Draco’s wrist, which Draco really preferred he would do instead. “She was a Parselmouth and a Squib, and my parents met her through—I don’t know. Someone your parents knew, I think.”

“You don’t need to call them your parents now. They’re Potters, and you’re not.”

Harry gave him a wan smile. “That’s true.”

“Then _that_ means you can do whatever you want,” Black interrupted eagerly. “Listen, Harry, you don’t have to stay bound to what your _parents_ wanted out of you. We can go and prank them until James’s antlers ache, and—”

“I don’t want to prank them, either.” Harry sighed and leaned for a moment against Draco, but that welcome warmth was gone too soon and he was studying Black again. “I want them to pay for what they did, but that doesn’t include seeing them. Unless you use that spell you were talking about and get pictures of the expressions on their faces from a distance,” he added over his shoulder to Draco.

Draco had to smile. “I worked long and hard on that spell, and I’ve only had a chance to test it a time or two. I can’t imagine a better purpose for it.”

“What are you talking about?” Black demanded.

Harry glanced at Draco sidelong. Draco nodded. He thought Black was trustworthy enough to know about it, even if he’d only _just_ proved himself.

“We’re going to create an article that talks about what they did to me and how they disowned me yesterday and that they failed to recognize a wizard when he was looking them in the face.”

*

 _The problem with Sirius,_ Harry thought, _is that he won’t_ stop _laughing._

Not even Marcos coming to the door of the kitchen and frowning had worked this time. Sirius kept, literally, howling and slapping the edge of the table, shaking his head back and forth. Then he buried it in his arms and howled with tears streaming down his cheeks. Marcos disappeared back into the kitchen.

Draco looked as disgusted as Marcos had. He caught Harry’s eye and gestured emphatically with his head towards the door.

Harry shook his own head back and held still. He still wanted this link to his godfather and someone who had wanted him and tried to get him away from his parents.

Draco tilted his head again.

Harry shook _his_ wrist so that the bonding bracelet flashed and glittered in the dim light coming down from the ceiling.

Draco rolled his eyes and waited. Sirius had lifted his head, and he was grinning now. Harry was suddenly sure that his Animagus form was a dog, or a wolf or something like that. Only a canine could smile with so many teeth.

“I love it. It’s perfect,” Sirius declared. He turned his head and scowled as Marcos came out of the kitchen with a frying pan at the ready. “What are you _doing_?”

“I was going to smack you on the back of the head.” Marcos studied them and finally slid the frying pan into a slot on the wall. “I see there’s no need.”

“I _can_ keep my head,” Sirius said, with dignity that Harry thought wasn’t so much wounded as crippled and dying, and then faced Harry and Draco again with an enormous grin on his face. “I think it’s the perfect revenge. James and Lily have become so stuffy and respectable over the years, and they held to that contract when they should have just dissolved it. This will scoop their guts out.”

“Um,” said Harry.

“Aw, come on! You’re not going to do it because _I_ approve of it?” Sirius made huge eyes at him and let his head flop dramatically into the middle of the table. “Fine, I withdraw my approval of this plan. I absolutely _forbid_ you to do it! You are supposed to come back and be the good little respectable pure-blood son they always wanted! Do as they tell you! Go away! Get out of my sight!” He flung his head back and his hand up, warding Harry off, then peeked at him in between his spread fingers. “Did that work?”

Harry had to laugh, and noticed that even Draco was grinning. “No, I just meant—that image. Their guts scooped out. You _really_ don’t like them, do you?”

Sirius’s mood changed like a leaping hare again, and he threw himself back in his chair and sighed at the ceiling. “I don’t _understand_! James never liked all that pure-blood stuff when we were younger. He was impatient about the people who expected him to hate Muggleborns—which is how he got together with Lily in the first place. He despised Voldemort from the first time we heard about him. And he would have laughed in anyone’s face who suggested that he betroth his children with contracts.” He groaned and hit his fist into his palm. “I don’t _know_ what happened to him.”

“But you can’t forgive him for it,” Harry said.

It was a guess, but Sirius nodded at him. “Or Lily for going along with it. I mean, I _think_ I know what she might be thinking. She always felt out of place. Someone would make a remark about politics that happened in closed sessions of the Wizengamot or private conversations, but got out because the pure-bloods all knew each other. Or someone would act perfectly friendly to her face and then say ‘Mudblood,’ and then hasten to reassure her that she wasn’t like _them_. So she might have adopted this as a way to fit in. But James has no excuse.”

“Neither does she.” That was Draco, glittering-toothed.

“Either way, it’ll be fun to bring them down,” Sirius mused. He glanced at Harry. “Who were you going to get to write the article?”

“I thought Rita Skeeter,” said Draco, because Harry had no idea and had to glance at him.

Sirius snorted. “She deals in gossip, and she’s widely-read, but her stories get forgotten as soon as they’re read. And she’ll be as ready to turn on you as she was on James and Lily.”

“But she’s the only reporter I know.”

“Easy enough to find someone else,” said Sirius, and now he was grinning in a way that made Harry eye him. “You’ve heard the name Remus Lupin, I know.”

“I remember him visiting the house!” Harry blurted. When Sirius blinked, he added, “I mean—I was just startled at how much I remembered when I came back to Britain. I remember all of you playing on brooms on the Quidditch pitch. When was that?”

Sirius sighed. “That was before I made my last attempt to get custody of you. I still thought I could persuade James. And when we got him out of the house, then he sometimes acted more like his old self. But Quidditch was the only time that happened.”

“And then he kept you from coming around at all—”

“What about Remus Lupin?” Draco said, prodding Harry in the back as if to remind him that they had a vindictive article to publish.

“Only that he sometimes works for the _Quibbler_ ,” Sirius said, swinging a glass back and forth in his hand so hard Harry thought it would fly into the corner of the table and splinter in a second. “And publishes articles on the Continent the rest of the time. In werewolf-friendly publications, of course.”

Draco made a choking sound. “He’s a _werewolf_.”

“Yes, I rather thought you knew that,” Sirius drawled. “Either from your parents saying something about why it wasn’t suitable for me to be around anymore, or from the articles he published.”

Draco only shook his head, looking overwhelmed. Harry frowned a little. He remembered his mentor saying that werewolves were reviled even more than Squibs in the wizarding world, but he didn’t know much about them. “Would he be able to have—I don’t know, people pay attention to him, right? Even if he’s a werewolf?”

“You had _better_ pay attention to a werewolf if you don’t want to die.”

“Don’t talk about Remus that way,” Sirius snapped, and flicked his fingers so hard against the back of Draco’s hand that Draco jumped. Harry chuckled, which he knew wasn’t nice, but Draco’s wounded look made any non-niceness worth it.

“Yes, people respect Remus,” Sirius continued. “Not every country is as bigoted about werewolves as we are. And it would make him all the more listened to because he used to be James and Lily’s friend, and not everyone has forgotten that. It’s one of those things James turned his back on to fit in with the _proper_ pure-bloods.” He was looking at Draco again, his sneer slight but there. Then he turned to Harry. “Are you _sure_ you want to marry him? I could find you a nice Muggleborn boy who would still totally shock your parents.”

“Bond.”

“Yes, I reckon you do want to marry-bond him, you’re talking like him, even,” Sirius said, and rolled his eyes. Then he grinned. “What we _really_ ought to do is present it as supportive.”

“Of the _Potters_?” Draco sounded like he was about to sick up.

“Empty your little porcelain head of all those pure-blood fantasies you might be having,” said Sirius. “No, I mean you and me being supportive of Harry.”

Harry wasn’t sure where it came from, but suddenly the perfect picture was in his mind. “You mean—like, I’m sitting in a chair in the photograph, and the article says I’m talking softly about how they threw me away and convinced me I was evil for most of my life? And Draco is standing behind me and patting my shoulder, and you’re sitting off to the side looking furious and saying, ‘That’s _right_ ’ sometimes? And then I start telling the story of how Draco taught me I was a wizard, and I came back to life, and it turned out to be my sister after all, and my parents disowned me for no reason, and we come off looking triumphant and totally in the right and they look like they’re idiots?”

Sirius laughed like a bear, clapped his hands, ducked the skillet that came soaring out of the kitchen, and shouted, “We’ll make a Marauder of you _yet_!”


	19. Vengeance

"I'm so glad to see you again, Harry."

Beyond words, Harry simply blinked and clasped hands with Remus Lupin. His amber eyes were very wolf-like once Harry knew what he was looking for, but if he hadn't _known_ the man was a werewolf, he would have put it down to a trick of the light. His sad smile and intense handshake mattered more anyway.

From the way he was fussing and muttering behind Harry, Draco might have disagreed, but Harry serenely ignored him, inasmuch as that was possible. He smiled at Remus and said, "Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you." Remus took a seat on the couch in Sirius's large home; Harry was still trying to get over how high the arched ceilings were and how much light the windows let in. Sirius had said something about it being deliberately different from his childhood home, and left it at that. "So, Harry. Your parents disowned you."

Harry sighed and sat down on the opposite-facing couch with Draco right beside him. "Yes."

"Even though they knew it was Dahlia's magic all this time?"

"Oh, no, they didn't know. James disowned me before Draco figured out it must have been Dahlia repressing her own personality and enchanting them."

Remus frowned and exchanged glances with Sirius that, for all Harry knew, might be communicating a lot more than it looked like. Then he nodded and said, "Did they seem upset when Draco figured it out?'

"You could call him Malfoy, like I do."

Everyone present ignored Sirius's mutter, although Harry felt Draco's shoulders tense where he leaned against him. He nodded. "They went off to discuss it, I think. I suppose it's possible I'll get a letter that says they're sorry and begs me to come back and see what we can do." He paused, tracing a finger down a crease in the couch. Draco was sitting very still behind him.

"And?" Remus's eyes were kind, but waiting.

Harry said it aloud for the first time to someone other than Draco. "I don't think I can ever forgive them for what they did, even if they realize they were totally in the wrong."

Remus nodded slowly. Harry wondered if he approved of the answer or not, but all he said was, "Okay. Then that's the angle we'll take in the story. That you were thrown out of the house and you have your own life now, and they gave up the chance to be part of that life."

Sirius snapped his fingers. "I _like_ it."

"Don't make them sound so passive," Draco said, his hand migrating over to rest on the back of Harry's neck as though he needed to touch it to support himself. "So innocent. They didn't just give up the chance to be part of Harry's life, they tried to take the life he _should_ have had away from him. And they were the ones who threw him out of the house. He wasn't just thrown by someone nameless."

"I never intended to say he was."

"You're _talking_ as if he was."

"It's all right," Harry said hastily, before Draco and Remus could get into some strange pissing contest over him. "I knew what he meant."

Draco looked at him with eyes that might have seemed bright and careless if Harry hadn't known him better than that. "People are _going_ to respect you. Not just because you're my bonded or because they didn't respect you in the past. Because you _deserve_ it."

Harry tried to put words around the simmering feeling in his stomach, but Sirius interrupted before he could. "I thought you weren't bonded yet? Did you forget to invite me to something, Harry?"

Harry would never think his newfound family was more trouble than they were worth, but he did want to go sit on a wall by himself and think sometimes. He sighed, then said, "Draco's just using it as shorthand. We intend to bond. We're not bonded yet."

“Good,” Sirius said, sitting back with a nod. “Then there’s still the chance that you might come to your senses.”

Remus cast Sirius a warning look that he ignored. Remus sighed and focused on Draco. “What do you want this article to be like? I mean, the part about your bonding and the way you discovered Harry? Sirius told me what you did to James and Lily.” For a second, his eyes shone in a way that made it easy for Harry to imagine them gleaming from the edges of a dark forest. “But it’s illegal to do that, so we can’t put it in the article.”

“I’m perfectly fine with explaining that Dahlia Potter has no personality.” Draco grinned. “And why.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Remus said patiently. Harry thought that he would have made a great teacher. “How are you going to say that you found out about Harry?”

“From a friend,” Draco said. “That’s perfectly true. My friend Pansy Parkinson had heard the gossip, and so had Blaise Zabini. It’s never been a _huge_ secret. It’s just old enough that not many people spoke of it because it wasn’t fresh anymore, and no one had mentioned it to me.”

“You think your parents deliberately kept mention of Harry away from you?”

“They would never have talked to me about it, because I might have started thinking that a Squib Potter child was a good reason to break the contract. Who was to say that one of _my_ children might not have ended up a Squib, if I’d had them with Dahlia?” Draco reached out and gently took Harry’s hand again, smoothing his fingers up the bonding bracelet. “But they didn’t keep me away from people who knew.”

“What did they think you would do when you found out?”

Harry knew enough about the Malfoys to answer this one, even before Draco did. “His duty,” he whispered.

Draco inclined his head. “They thought I would keep the contract no matter what because they thought I had the same kind of honor they do.”

“Different kinds of honor?”

Harry had to admire the way Remus was asking. He would just ask a question and then listen and then ask another one. It was a gentle way to draw the story out of them.

From the way Draco raised his eyebrows, he had figured out the tactic, but was willing to go along with it. “Yes. I told my father that they could have the kind of pure-blood honor that wasn’t worth throwing everything else away for, or the kind that’s worth defending.”

“I don’t remember you putting it like that.”

“It was what I meant.”

Harry rested his forehead on Draco’s shoulder, but this time, it was at least partially to hide a smile.

“The kind of pure-blood honor that James and Lily _thought_ your parents had,” Remus murmured. “The kind that they probably intended you to have when they changed Harry’s name to Dahlia’s on the contract.”

Draco nodded in silence. Harry was the one who had to step in. “Do you think you can write the story well enough to infuriate people and make my old family look bad, Remus?”

“That, I’m certain of.” Remus shifted around on the couch and traded glances with Sirius. “But there’s something else we need to be aware of, because the Potters aren’t the only people the article will infuriate.”

“Dumbledore,” Sirius said, in the way that he might growl when he was in his Animagus form.

“Yes,” said Remus. “I don’t suppose you care to tell me what he said about you and this influence you supposedly had over Dahlia, Harry?”

“I can do better than that,” Harry said. “I don’t remember him visiting much at all in my childhood, but he visited me and Draco when we were still in New York. He gave me the same old story about how my magic had belonged to Voldemort and I couldn’t use it because that would mean being evil.”

Remus leaned slowly forwards. “You think he’ll oppose your return to Britain?”

“He hasn’t done much about it so far,” Draco pointed out in a mild voice, although the way his arm squeezed around Harry’s ribs told Harry a lot about what he was _really_ feeling. “He seems to have the impression that we’ll do what we’re told. I don’t know why. Maybe because most other people do what they’re told when he speaks to them.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t try to prepare James and Lily against you.”

“Like they would have _listened_ ,” Sirius interrupted with a contemptuous snort. “You know they already thought Harry was evil and they were right to exile him when he was _ten bloody years old._ Dumbledore could have warned them that Harry and Malfoy here were about to cut their precious daughter out of her precious marriage, and they would just have been confident that they could stop him. Or that no one in his right mind _wouldn’t_ want to marry Dahlia."

“Perhaps you’re right. Although it makes me wonder what they’re feeling right now, now that they know it was Dahlia who poisoned their minds.”

A flap of Sirius’s hand dismissed the Potters and everything they might be feeling. “Who cares? What matters is what we’re going to say in the article.”

Remus took out some parchment and ink and started writing. Now and then he paused to stare into space. Harry didn’t interrupt, and neither did Draco. Harry thought it was seeing even Sirius get quiet and attentive that made Draco decide he couldn’t.

Remus finally turned the parchment around so Harry could look at what he’d written. “Would something like this do, do you think? It might even cause some of the more fanatical to doubt Dumbledore.”

Harry began to read, and in seconds his face hurt from grinning. “That’s _perfect_.”

“Good.” Remus grinned back at him. “Then I have some more questions, to make sure this story has that perfect ring of authenticity and getting under people’s skin.”

*

“It’s on the front page of the _Prophet_ ,” Draco took delight in telling Harry when Harry stumbled into the kitchen, yawning and in search of tea, the next morning.

Harry stared before he shook his head and sat down at his place, reaching for the plate of scones standing ready. “It is? But I thought Remus said they didn’t usually publish his articles because he’s a werewolf.”

“The prospect must have been too tempting.” Draco glanced at the photograph again and held out the paper. “I can see why.”

Harry smiled goofily at the picture. Draco moved around to the side, wanting to see both the paper and the expression on Harry’s face while he looked at it.

They’d recreated the pose that they’d held in the Potters’ house when they were confronting James and Lily. Draco had his arms around Harry’s waist and his chin resting on Harry’s shoulder. Harry stood with his wand held in front of him, sparking and glowing. That ought to put to rest the notion that he was a Squib, Draco thought with vicious satisfaction.

Underneath, the headline said, _SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY! PURE-BLOOD FAMILY EXILES HEIR AS ‘SQUIB.’_

Lupin had done a good job, Draco had to admit. He’d thought the werewolf would put the Potters’ name in the headline, but there was really no reason to do that, not when the demand for knowledge would make people eager to read further.

And the article itself began innocently, and then turned sideways to swipe all Potters involved.

_Eighteen years ago, as we all know, Harry Potter—called that at the time—somehow defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. What no one knew was how he did it. And then we heard rumors that the Potters had exiled their baby boy, claiming he was a Squib, but everyone seemed content just to forget about it._

_We should never have forgotten. One brave young man, Draco Malfoy, learned he was supposed to bond the firstborn Potter heir and sought him ought, certain that someone who had defeated You-Know-Who could never be a Squib._

_“And I was right,” Mr. Malfoy told me in a special interview. “He took the Dark Lord’s magic by right of conquest.”_

_What this means, for those who might not know due to ignorance or isolation, is that You-Know-Who’s magic has been absorbed completely by Harry. His Light magic was equally strong—probably the only reason he was able to survive the absorption._

“ _My Light magic was replaced by Voldemort’s Dark magic,” Harry told me during the same interview. “I’m sad about it on one level, but on the other hand, I can’t remember what being a Light wizard was like. I am what I am now._ ”

_You may have noticed that I have called Harry by only his first name in the last few paragraphs. That is because the Potters have disowned him. Doubtless it was a well-thought-out decision._

_Or perhaps not, given that both Harry and Mr. Malfoy have told me that they exiled their firstborn without giving him adequate money to live on._

_“I think they thought the Squib they chose as my mentor would take care of me,” Harry said. “But that was a little difficult when she died.”_

_Luckily, Harry managed to forge a sort of existence in Muggle New York City. But it was a hardscrabble one, if Mr. Malfoy can be believed, made possible only because Harry knew a few Squibs and wizards who could help him._

“ _Here he is, at nineteen, having lived on his own for years since his mentor died, at a time when most British_ wizards _are still in Hogwarts,” Mr. Malfoy said. His voice vibrated with indignation. “All because certain people were too worried by his apparent transformation into a Dark wizard to really study him and realize what his transformation_ meant. _They would rather think he was a Squib than spend the time it would have taken._ ”

_Mr. Malfoy admits that he admires Harry’s independent spirit, and it was one of the things that made him decide to bond with the former Potter heir. But he is still upset that one of the prominent pure-blood families of Britain cast one of their own out._

“ _We’re trained to abide by honor,” he said. “We have to keep our word once we give it. We have to abide by the contracts we make. But they already changed the contract once. They were going to give Harry to me in bonding, and then they changed it to the secondborn child, even before she was born. They didn’t know if she would be powerful in magic! They didn’t know if she would be a good match for me! But they did it anyway._ ”

_The outrage is all the worse when considering one of the reasons the Potters exiled Harry._

_“They thought I influenced my sister Dahlia,” Harry said, sitting on the couch in his godfather Sirius Black’s home. Mr. Black has offered to give Harry a home if he needs it—though with his bonding into the prestigious Malfoy family already near, that might not be for long. “They thought it was Voldemort, really. His magic, which I didn’t control. That was how they could tell me that I was a Squib in spite of having magic. It was evil and not really part of me.”_

_Mr. Malfoy dropped a hand on Harry’s shoulder as he spoke that, and Harry looked up with a quick smile. Mr. Malfoy had no smile on his face._

“ _But we figured out what had really happened to make Dahlia into a mindless maiden,” he said. “It was her own magic. She wanted to be perfect so much that she wiped out her own personality. And she made her parents adore her to an unreasonable extent. It was one of the reasons they chose her over their other child.”_

 _He squeezed Harry’s shoulder. “But they made their final choice and their final mistake. If they can’t see the wonderful when it’s dropped in front of them…_ ”

 _This reporter tends to agree. Who sends their own child out into the world with no money? Who exiles their child at_ ten? _Squibs are commonly sent away either younger, so that they can fully adapt to the Muggle world without remembering the wizarding one, or older, so they have more of a chance of surviving on their own._

_It seems that the Potters aren’t as perfect as we tended to believe._

_But—perhaps—it isn’t entirely their fault. Albus Dumbledore himself, along with the Unspeakables, told the Potters that Harry was a Squib and the only magic he was capable of was the evil influencing of his sister._

_Which makes you have to wonder: how is it that a nineteen-year-old Malfoy, who had never met the young man he was destined to bond with at one point, could figure out the truth of Harry overcoming You-Know-Who’s magic and remaining a wizard, when the great Albus Dumbledore could not?_

_You do have to wonder._

Harry finished reading and looked up with a grin. “Did you read the whole thing?”

“Three times now,” Draco said contentedly. Other than an actual rant filled with words that Lupin probably wouldn’t be allowed to use in a newspaper anyway, it was the most satisfying result he could imagine.

“I wonder,” Harry murmured as he put the paper down, “what their response is going to be?”

Draco started to reply, but the Floo flared then, and Black’s eager voice announced, “Twenty-four.”

“Twenty-four what?” Draco asked, resigned to the fact that he would have to be the one to provide the context.

“Twenty-four Howlers James and Lily have got so far!” Black gave a howl that convinced Draco his Animagus form must be a dog. It didn’t sound like a wolf’s. “I have a little monitoring spell on their house that I haven’t used for a long time. But this seemed like the proper time to reactivate it, don’t you agree?”

Harry grinned. “What about Dumbledore?”

“My spell saw an owl leave and fly in the direction of Hogwarts. Want to come over and help me watch for when he comes?”

Draco had to smile at the way Harry scrambled out of the chair, although he did make Harry take along his uneaten breakfast before they went through the flames to Black’s house.

And some part of him, the part of him that had been afraid Harry would forgive the Potters after all in his desperate desire for a family, relaxed.


	20. Backlash

 

Draco snickered and leaned his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Why aren’t _you_ laughing?”

“I’m still trying to understand. Why he was so insistent about me being Voldemort and getting exiled, I mean. I was a baby. I hadn’t done anything to him. So why?”

“Who cares?” Sirius asked, sticking his head in front of the image of Dumbledore striding towards the Potters’ house, his face grim. “Maybe it’s because he thinks he’s always right and he doesn’t like to be wrong. Maybe because he’s paranoid about Voldemort and didn’t know how to determine that he was gone forever. Maybe he was Peter’s secret lover and disappointed he was locked up. _I_ don’t know. Don’t worry about it, Harry. Just enjoy.”

Harry folded his arms and didn’t look away from the image of Dumbledore knocking on the front door. When it opened, an owl carrying a Howler dived in behind him. Harry thought he could hear a slight snatch of screaming before the door slammed shut again, but Sirius’s images through the spell didn’t give a lot of sound.

Sirius canceled the spell with a wave of his hand and turned to consider Harry. “You’re less happy than I expected.”

“I don’t like things I don’t understand, when they affect my life,” Harry admitted. He reached down to touch M.H., who had come with them and who Sirius had scowled at for two seconds before Draco told him about how much M.H. had scared the Potters. Now Sirius thought he was the greatest snake ever. “I didn’t much like being a Squib, but at least I understood it. Now, with Dumbledore…”

“You’re worried about him retaliating?”

“Not so much against me. I don’t have a lot he can take, except my new reputation. I’m worried about him retaliating against Draco, and you, and Remus.”

Sirius clucked his tongue hard against his teeth. “What would reassure you? I can’t get Dumbledore apologizing in person, but I can try something else.”

Harry blinked. “What something else?” It had never occurred to him that there was something else Sirius could try.

“Well,” said Sirius, drawing out the word like a strand of treacle tart, “just _for example_ , you have no last name now.”

“That’s not a problem.” Draco leaned forwards as if he thought he had to shield Harry even from his godfather. Harry squeezed his upper arm and moved him gently aside. Draco went, but he picked up Harry’s arm on the way and showed off his bonding bracelet to Sirius. “When we bond, he’ll take the last name Malfoy.”

“And I’m sure he’s very grateful for that,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. “But you tell me you made your parents accept your decision.”

“Yes?” Draco was coiled, cool, ready to fight. Harry stroked his shoulder. He thought Draco hadn’t forgiven Sirius yet for seemingly abandoning Harry for the last eighteen years, but Harry had. Draco needed to calm down.

“Then they’re probably going to want a formal bonding, right? Pure-blood customs and great big fireworks and—all right, Cousin Cissy was never one for fireworks. But it’ll take a bunch of time to organize.”

“What’s your point?”

“There’s another last name Harry can have in those months while he waits for your parents to write the guest list,” Sirius said, and smiled at Harry over Draco’s head again. “Black. If he wants it.”

Harry stared at him. He had never imagined something like this would happen—but, of course, he had never imagined the Potters disowning him. He coughed. “But—what about your family? I mean, I don’t know a whole lot about it. I don’t remember. Dahlia was the one who got the genealogy lessons.”

“I had a brother,” Sirius said, and for a moment he looked truly uncomfortable for the first time since Harry had met him. “Regulus. He was a Death Eater, and he died in the war. I never knew exactly how. But my parents didn’t have any other children, and all my cousins were girls who married into some other family and took their name. And I haven’t ever found a woman who was worth my charming personality.” He flipped his hair across his eyes and winked at Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes. Draco rolled his harder.

“So. I have a spot as the Black heir going begging. James used to press me about taking one of his other kids, but that was when we were still talking, and I don’t really know them now. Not that I would want Dahlia anyway. What do you say, kid? Want to become the heir of a pure-blood family and _really_ piss James and Lily off?”

Harry coughed and said, “I—it’s incredibly generous.”

“That sounds like a no. Consider this.” Sirius snapped his fingers. “It would _also_ piss off Dumbledore, and it’ll make my parents spin in their graves. You get to annoy five people for the price of two.” He beamed at Harry hopefully.

Harry drew breath with difficulty. He felt like he had when he’d thought Draco had come seeking him as his consort simply because of the contract. “I—don’t want you to feel like you have to do something about me, Sirius. Just because I’m here. And I _don’t_ want you to do it just to piss the Potters off.”

“It’s all of those and more!” Sirius bounced in place on the couch. “But really, Harry, I like you. You’re a lot different than I thought any Squib released to the Muggle world would have been—”

“Harry is _not_ a Squib—”

“Stuff it, Malfoy. _Thought_ he was a Squib, then. There’s not a good term for that.” Sirius stopped bouncing and looked at Harry with hopeful eyes. “And you’re so different from a kid of James and Lily that I’m amazed. You’ve done all right for yourself.” He glanced at M.H. “Took something they hated about you and turned it into a means to survive. I want to do this. I would offer it even if James was still sensible and you were still his heir. I mean it.”

Harry drew a deep, painful breath. He felt Draco touch his shoulder in wonder and doubt, and Harry turned his head and smiled at him. Then he looked back at Sirius. “You really mean it? That you would do it even if I still had parents?”

“Yes.”

Sirius was smiling—Harry thought it took a lot to make him stop smiling—but it was deeper and more meaningful than the way he smiled and laughed at pranks. Harry held out his hand.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed,” he said. “I went from feeling like I had no one, to having Draco, to having no family, then to having you. It’s—I want to. It’s just sudden.”

Sirius gave what might honestly have been a howl of joyful triumph, and dodged forwards to seize Harry around the waist. For a second Draco tried to keep hold of Harry’s arm and he actually thought it might be torn off; then Sirius was whirling around the floor with him and laughing and Draco let go and it was okay. Harry hugged him back, and felt the tears he was about to start crying melt away from his eyelids and leave him whole.

“Thank you,” Sirius said. “I never wanted to give this stupid Black inheritance away to someone who didn’t want it, but I didn’t want to leave it to rot, either. Now I know someone will have it who wants it, and I can help you, and I can do something to make up for not saving you when they exiled you, and I can spite James and Lily all at once.” He set Harry on the floor and grinned at him. “There’s nothing about this that’s _not_ good.”

“You realize,” Draco said in a drawling voice from the couch, “that accepting your place as Harry’s father means that you’ll have to participate in the bonding. At least, the traditional bonding that I suspect my parents will decree.”

Sirius made a face. “ _Really_?”

“Yes.”

Sirius waved his hand. “All right, all right, I can do that. And that means I get to spite Cousin Cissy, too.” He flopped down on the couch again and gestured to Draco, who pulled Harry possessively back to his side. “And your father. And any other stuffy relatives who might come to the bonding and have some connection to the Blacks. This is turning out to be a really great day all around.”

*

Draco sighed as they ate the last of their lunch. Black had offered to let them stay and eat with him in celebration, but Draco felt he’d shared his consort quite enough with the over-enthusiastic mutt. He wanted a little time to themselves.

“Do you think they do regret what they did?”

Draco listened, but he only heard genuine curiosity in Harry’s tone, not regret for having done what they had to do with regards to the Potters. He leaned across the table to take his hand, kissed the back of it, and said, “Probably. I suppose we won’t know unless they owl us.”

“I wonder if there’s some way we can find out.”

Draco puckered his lips. He honestly hadn’t expected Harry to be that eager. “We could go back to Black’s and ask him to look through his spell again, I suppose.”

“That doesn’t have sound and it won’t show them unless they actually come out of the house. I want—I want to hear their voices. See their _faces_.”

Draco smiled and lifted Harry’s hand to kiss it again. “There’s that vindictive streak I always knew had to be there, under the Potter goodness.”

“Maybe I’m learning something from my adopted father.”

Draco laughed and stood up. “All right. There are no spells I can use that will see inside the house directly, but I can set up an alarm that will let us know when someone comes out of the house. Then we can attach a monitoring spell to their hands or arms and it’ll show us whatever they’re present for.”

Harry started. “You can _do_ that?”

“Of course.”

“I’m wondering how my former parents ever survived their immersion in your world. It doesn’t sound like they were half ruthless enough.”

Draco shrugged. He had started believing a long time ago that his parents regretted going to the Potters and asking for a betrothal contract, but he understood it now. They had thought Harry was going to be the one to defeat Voldemort, and they wanted to be on the winning side. And when they thought Harry was a Squib, they insisted on changing the contract to have a bride who wouldn’t dishonor their son, but they didn’t want to break their word.

Their honor was as crippling in its way as the Potters’ lack of it.

 _I never intend to be crippled,_ Draco thought, and wrapped his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “I could set the alarm spell, or we could be more active. Should we go to the Potters’ house under a Disillusionment Charm and wait for someone to come out?” he asked.

Harry grinned and leaned up to kiss him. “You, on the other hand, are _more_ than ruthless enough,” he said, when he broke away.

Draco preened, and wrapped himself more tightly around Harry as they walked out the door.

*

The first person to come out the door was Dahlia.

Harry felt himself freeze, even though he knew she couldn’t see them under Draco’s expert Disillusionment Charm. It was more—seeing the sister he had been blamed for influencing for so long. Seeing her walking along, wiping at her eyes. He wondered if she was actually going somewhere. She probably couldn’t Apparate yet.

Draco breathed the spell beside him, and something that looked like a white pebble soared away from his wand and into Dahlia’s skin. She didn’t seem to notice. She wiped her eyes again and then turned and looked around as if waiting for someone.

“You have an interesting choice of spells, boys.”

Harry felt his body snap taut. Dumbledore was behind them, and he was smiling sadly at them. A second later, he had canceled their Disillusionment Charm.

“Professor Dumbledore?” Dahlia’s eyes were wide. She must have been waiting for Dumbledore, Harry decided, but she hadn’t known he would ambush them.

“Yes.” Dumbledore considered them both. Harry felt Draco grab and turn them so that they stood back-to-back. Dumbledore didn’t appear alarmed, or fall into a dueling stance. “I ought to have known that you couldn’t leave your family alone, Harry. Dark wizards don’t usually leave Light wizards that conquered them alone.”

Harry stared at Dumbledore with his lips a little parted. He—he didn’t have words. Luckily, Draco had enough for both of them.

“Conquered them? Perhaps you meant _disowned_ them. Or _cast them out._ Or _were afraid of a child._ Aren’t those the words you mean, Dumbledore?”

Dahlia gave a little gasp. Harry didn’t have time to think about why. Dumbledore had stepped towards him and was staring at the scar on his forehead.

“That is the true remnant of Voldemort’s possession of you, Harry,” he said. He sounded as if he was talking to himself. “You haven’t mentioned it to the young man who’s so eager to bond with you instead of doing his duty by his betrothed, have you? How it writhes sometimes? How you can feel Voldemort’s evil will through it.”

Harry said, “I never felt any evil will.”

Draco leaned his chin on Harry’s shoulder and sighed almost into his ear. “You can leave off your efforts to split us up, Professor Dumbledore. I noticed Harry’s scar moving a long time ago. I reckoned it had something to do with Voldemort.” Dumbledore’s eyes widened. Harry supposed it must be a Malfoy saying that particular name. “But I wanted to wait until Harry was comfortable enough to tell me.”

“I am,” Harry whispered backwards. “It just slipped my mind.”

“I know.”

“You do _not_ ,” Dumbledore said, so strongly that Draco actually looked at him in pity. “You do _not_ understand the magic behind that scar, or why it is so evil. No one does.”

“Then it’s pretty rich for you to imply Harry should have told me, when he can’t know, either.” Draco’s eyes were bored, but his hold around Harry’s waist—he’d turned so his chest was to Harry’s back—was tight. “Are you going to give up now and go away? We won’t do what you want no matter what incentive you offer us.”

“There are things I can easily do. Tactics I am reluctant to employ, but they would make you go crawling back to your rightful place.”

“Then I’m not interested in hearing you explain them.”

“I am _trying_ to make this easy for you,” Dumbledore said, and his voice cracked a little. “Do you _understand_ , Mr. Malfoy? I am _trying_ to make you see that we can compromise, and I don’t have to unleash the other weapons in my arsenal.”

“That sounds like a threat. Not a compromise.”

Harry sighed a little. Draco was so good at putting words around something that felt unacceptable to Harry, but which he had a hard time saying was unacceptable. He was glad to have found a partner—a consort—who could do that.

“You can still walk away from this, Mr. Malfoy. You did nothing except be born a few months before—Harry to a family who wanted to be on the winning side and thought to betroth their child to the Potter firstborn. You can still enjoy life with a woman who loves you.”

“She’s not the woman who interests me.”

“There are far worse things than a little boredom in a marriage, Mr. Malfoy. If you ask your parents, I’m sure they would agree with me.”

“Draco?” Dahlia interjected in a soft little voice. Harry twitched, but didn’t bother glancing at her. He knew he would see nothing of interest. “I’m still in love with you. You would always have love if you lived with me. Always.”

“Not interested.”

“I don’t want to do this, Professor Dumbledore,” Dahlia said, and turned to Dumbledore. More tears were flowing down her cheeks.

Harry thought she meant that she didn’t want to talk to them anymore and would retreat into the house, but Dumbledore grimaced and sighed. “I know, my dear, but you have to. It’s the only way that you’ll ever have what you want, and the only way the wizarding world will ever have peace. And a way for you to redeem yourself.”

Dahlia had her arms wrapped around herself, shivering, when Harry looked at her. Harry shifted warily backwards, ready to reach for his wand if he had to.

But instead of taking her wand out, Dahlia focused her eyes on Draco. Harry thought he could feel a brief glow of magic from her.

Then she said, “Draco, you’re in love with me. I _want_ you to be in love with me. I want that more than anything else.”

And Harry felt the powerful magic moving through the air, in waves from her focused on Draco, and he knew their battle was far from over.


	21. Epiphany

The magic hit Draco like a wave in the face.

There was the taste of salt in his teeth, and the urge to gasp, and the drawing, pulling, cold water swarming around his legs. He knew he was following it out to sea. It seemed only natural to do what that magic wanted him to do, which was to find some way to please Dahlia—

_But why would I want to? Dahlia is boring._

Yet, as he looked at her, Draco thought he had never noticed the glowing shadows in her eyes before, or the way her gaze dropped away before him, or how her hair blazed. He didn’t reach out to touch her, but it was a near thing. It was—it was so wonderful that he didn’t touch her because he knew his palm would be seared by the flame if he tried to hold it.

But there was someone else in his arms, and that was a reason not to reach out, too. Draco looked down in some perplexity. He couldn’t remember who else would be here. His mother, perhaps, come to watch as he accepted his betrothal at last?

Brilliant green eyes met his. Draco reeled back, because there was pain and despair in those eyes, and he had only ever seen them in the face of Lily Potter. And _she_ wouldn’t have been despairing to learn that Draco finally loved Dahlia—

_But I don’t._

The conviction was stronger this time, and then the person in his arms turned around and gripped Draco’s waist and said, “It doesn’t matter what you try to do to him, Dahlia. I’m going to make him _mine_ again.” Harry leaned up and kissed him hard.

That was his name, of course, Harry, and he had green eyes because he was Lily Potter’s son, but he wasn’t a Potter anymore, and Draco had found him and brought him back to England and was helping him recover from being disowned by his family…

The kiss strengthened, and something on Harry’s wrist flashed and caught Draco’s attention. He pulled back from the kiss, ignoring the way Harry tensed, to lift his wrist and stare.

The Malfoy bonding bracelet was almost aglow with magic.

_That’s it. That’s who I was going to bond with. How could I have forgotten?_

The cold, salty magic was running out with the tide again, coursing back to Dahlia. Draco shook his head sharply, and pulled Harry against him again. He didn’t think he would have woken up if not for the kiss and the sight of the bonding bracelet, as shameful as that was to admit.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Dahlia,” he said, “if you really want me to love you.”

She raised her downcast eyes and stared at him. Draco thought she was motionless because of her utter despair. “What would I have to do?”

“Be reborn as Harry.” Draco threaded his fingers through Harry’s. “And even then, you would never be anything but an inferior copy.”

Dahlia flinched. Draco shrugged. He had the immense satisfaction of speaking to someone who he hadn’t been able to tell the truth to for years. His mother had prevented him, and family honor had prevented him, and so many different things that now seemed petty, next to the conviction that he should have been able to refuse her long before he knew about Harry.

“You said,” Dahlia breathed, and turned to Dumbledore. “You said that would make him come back to me.”

“It should have, if he was any kind of good person.” Dumbledore’s face was lined when Draco looked at it. “It seems that he has less Light inside him than I thought, even in his core. You tried, Dahlia. You are not to be blamed for his failure.”

Draco couldn’t find the words he wanted to speak. He knew he had already hurt Dahlia probably as badly as he would ever hurt her, but _this_ —

As it turned out, he didn’t have to find the words. Harry did it for him.

Or rather, Harry found the magic.

*

The magic exploded out of Harry without his conscious control.

He’d barely recovered from the horror that was Dahlia trying to take Draco away from him, the way she’d taken his normal life and his parents and his right to be considered a Potter. And then Dumbledore said that, and implied that a good person would have stopped loving Harry because of Dumbledore’s convictions.

Harry didn’t lift his wand. A powerful slap of magic carried out of him, and left him gasping and sagging against Draco, who frowned at him a little and supported him. The slap crashed into Dumbledore and bore him to the ground.

Harry stood up with a shake of his head when Draco murmured something to him about needing support. He didn’t, at least right now. He had all the support he needed in knowing Draco was still his.

And he had another enemy to face down at the moment.

Dumbledore climbed slowly back to his feet, looking dazed. His hand was clasped to his cheek. Harry leaned closer, ignoring the way that Draco’s arms immediately curled around his waist, probably to restrain him from trying to get closer to Dumbledore.

Yes. There was the mark of a red handprint on Dumbledore’s cheek, when he finally moved his fingers. Harry whistled softly. He hadn’t known he could make his accidental magic that targeted. He didn’t know if the print would match his own hand, but he highly suspected it would.

“Impressive,” Draco murmured, for his ears alone. Harry smiled.

“How can you do this?” Dumbledore whispered. “It was one thing when you were ignorant, but how can you stand there and _willfully_ bring Voldemort’s magic back into the world?”

 _So he’s only going to talk about that, not about Draco’s rejection of Dahlia anymore._ Then again, maybe Dumbledore was smart enough to recognize when someone was absolutely not going to listen to him. Harry smiled a little and said, “You still haven’t convinced me that it’s Voldemort’s magic escaping my control and causing me to do things that I wouldn’t do otherwise. How would you even _test_ for that?” He turned to Draco and gave him a quizzical smile. “Do you know? What kind of tests exist to prove that I’m being used as a Dark Lord’s tool instead of using the magic that I won by right of conquest?”

“None exist,” Draco said promptly, and lightly touched his knuckles to Harry’s side, under his shirt. “Dumbledore only saw a normal process of one Dark wizard conquering another and chose to think it was something different, for reasons best known to himself.”

“I did not _choose_.” Dumbledore’s voice was frozen, his eyes twisting back and forth rapidly between Draco and Harry. He seemed to have decided that Dahlia didn’t matter now that she couldn’t fulfil his desires, and in fact Harry heard her crying retreat towards the house. “I know it is true.”

“Why?”

“The process of conquest that young Mr. Malfoy speaks of does not exist.”

Harry blinked, not so much disbelieving as caught off-guard. He glanced at Draco, who rolled his eyes and said, “It doesn’t work like that for Light wizards, so of course a man who’s been Light all his life would doubt it.”

“What does it look like for Light wizards?”

“They supposedly take the magic from each other as a gift. Honestly, I don’t think there’s much difference between that and conquest, especially when the ‘gift’ is unwilling, although I’ll grant that our auras feel different.” Draco’s gaze went back to Dumbledore. “Is there a test that would tell us whether an old man is lying, other than Veritaserum?”

“I don’t know about that. You’re the one who knows about spells and magical theory and all that.” Harry gave Dumbledore another glance. “You know, since someone decided it was a good idea to deprive me of the magical education that I _should_ have had.”

“There was no other choice.” Dumbledore’s voice sounded ragged, but also dogged. “There was _no other_ ,” he repeated, in the face of Draco staring at him with skepticism. “Absolutely none. And there is no choice now that Harry has returned to England but to send him back into exile again.”

“Why?”

“Voldemort’s magic is active and has a will of its own. Harry might think he’s controlling it, but it’s controlling him.”

“Again.” Draco’s voice was soft, but Harry knew him, and he could feel the anger in the arm that curled around his waist. “What _proof_ exists of this?”

“Because the process of conquest that you spoke of does not exist. Voldemort’s magic has replaced Harry’s magic. There’s no way that he could have transformed from a Light wizard into a Dark wizard otherwise.”

Draco sighed. “As I understand it, one of the reasons my parents joined your side is because Harry was born so powerful—enough to be Voldemort’s _equal._ They could feel that even when he was a baby.”

“Yes.”

Dumbledore was eyeing Draco as if he expected the calm words to turn on him any second. Harry grinned. _That’s a smart expectation._

“Well,” Draco said, earnestly, as if he was talking to Eric and not Dumbledore, “then you have to understand. That’s the way it works for Dark wizards. The Dark wizard who conquers has to be the equal or greater than the one he faces. And in cases where it’s very close, then the conquered magic replaces the magic that the wizard was born with.” He nodded to Harry. “Hence why he’s a Parselmouth when he wasn’t born as one.”

“I could have been born one,” Harry grumbled, to be in the conversation. “Not like we could tell now.”

Draco kissed the top of his head. “You’re quite special enough without that, you know. I don’t mourn the baby you were the way your parents and Dumbledore do.”

Harry arched his neck back against Draco’s shoulder, not trying to get another kiss, just silently absorbing what he had said. It didn’t matter if something else happened and Sirius disowned him, too; it didn’t matter if the Malfoys would always slightly prefer Dahlia or be baffled by Draco’s choice; it didn’t matter if the people who had been his parents made up some lie that meant they could live with what Dahlia had done but not with him.

There was _one_ person who would always be there.

*

Draco rejoiced in the warmth and strength of Harry’s weight in his arms, and in the meantime, watched Dumbledore carefully. He was blinking as if he didn’t understand what had just happened in front of him.

_And Light wizards claim that they’re the only ones who really know what love is like._

“It’s what happens when a Dark wizard conquers another Dark wizard,” Draco continued casually, as if the conversation they’d been having had never been discontinued. “As I said, if they’re of equal power. There’s been no record of a transformation from Light to Dark that I know of—”

“Then you _admit_ the problems with this theory?”

“But I don’t think there’s ever been a record of a powerful Dark wizard attacking another Light wizard of exactly equal power, either,” Draco continued, rolling his eyes a little at Dumbledore’s determination to interrupt. “Especially not when his enemy is an infant and has a notoriously unstable magical core that hasn’t settled all the way yet. But I think the explanation much more likely to be connected to a _proven_ way that powerful wizards interact than to your— _ideas_.”

Harry stifled a laugh at the last word. Draco didn’t preen only because they were in front of Dumbledore. It was somewhat comforting to know that a simple word choice could make Harry laugh like that.

“There is no sign that what you say is true. Besides, if equal wizards can conquer each other’s magic, why does one wizard win the duel instead of them simply canceling each other out?”

Draco’s eyebrows crept up. “You’ve decided that something doesn’t happen without ever doing research on it, haven’t you? The wizard that _wins the duel_ is the one that conquers, of course. Exact equals can still have one who wins. And in Harry’s case, since it wasn’t a traditional duel but a confrontation guided by prophecy, I don’t think he was exactly equal, either.” He smiled down at Harry. “I think he was probably more powerful, and Voldemort was insane and falling apart anyway. That was enough to give Harry an edge.”

“That is not true.”

“You have _no proof_.”

Dumbledore only shook his head. Draco bit his tongue, hard. He would throw a curse if he didn’t, and he honestly didn’t want to curse Dumbledore. He wanted to make him acknowledge that he was wrong, and then hopefully curl up and—

“What would convince you?”

Draco stared at Harry. “You want to _bargain_ with him?”

Harry didn’t remove his gaze from Dumbledore, but he gave Draco’s hand a quick little squeeze, which meant he was thinking of some plan and didn’t want Draco interrupting. “What would convince you that I’m not Voldemort reborn?”

“I never said that you were Voldemort reborn, Harry.” Dumbledore gave that soft smile that used to drive Draco mental at Hogwarts, the one he only showed Gryffindors. “I said you were his unwilling pawn.”

“What would convince you that I’m not his unwilling pawn?”

“If you let me remove your magic.”

“No,” Harry said, so simply and clearly that Draco thought he couldn’t have phrased it better himself. “What would convince you that I’m in control of this magic and not him?”

Dumbledore sighed long and hard enough to ruffle Draco’s hair. “There is a test the Unspeakables could conduct. They didn’t do it when you were younger because it’s illegal to perform it on any wizard not of age—”

“I’m surprised you let that stop you.”

The words got him an eye-twitch from Dumbledore and another hand-squeeze from Harry, but Dumbledore went on. “Now that you’re nineteen, they could do it. It involves showing your magical core from the inside out. It’s usually used to figure out if someone has a disease there. But it reveals _any_ impurities.”

“I want some reassurance that you wouldn’t simply claim Dark magic as an ‘impurity.’”

“The Unspeakables who perform this test are strictly neutral—”

“The same Unspeakables who agreed with you that I was a danger as a _baby_? No. I don’t trust them.”

“Mr. Pot—Harry.” Dumbledore gave him another of those little smiles. “There _is_ no one else qualified to do this kind of test. You can look, but only the Unspeakables in the whole of Britain have ever managed to set up and execute something like this.”

“I want them to swear an oath.”

Draco kissed the nape of Harry’s neck, delighted. Harry had been listening and reading some of the books in their safehouse, of course, but Draco hadn’t known he’d gone that far into the theory of oaths, or the realization of some of the more powerful things they could do.

“To do what?” Dumbledore’s voice was wary.

“To conduct the test and inform _me_ of the results first. To make sure that they’re reporting all the results and not the ones they think you might want to hear. And for them to make sure they don’t tell you until I give them permission.”

“Harry, I hardly think—”

“ _I do._ This is a private affair that you’ve already ruined my life over for no good reason. That means you’re going to _bloody step back_ now until I get the results.”

Draco licked his lips. He wanted to say something to Dumbledore about whether he doubted Draco’s choice _now_ , but on the other hand, he also didn’t want to show the reaction Harry had given him. It was pretty bloody private.

 _Like Harry’s life._ Draco slipped a hand lower on Harry’s waist. _We fit so well together._

“I could look around and see if there are Unspeakables who would swear the oath…”

“Do that. You should hope that there are, since that’s the only way you have any chance of recovering some of your reputation.”

Dumbledore turned without a word and walked away to where he could Apparate. Draco gently turned Harry around and stared down at him.

“And you’re willing to go through with this? Even though, as you said, it was Dumbledore and the Unspeakables who condemned you to exile?”

Harry snorted softly and reached up to stroke his cheek. “I want Dumbledore to see that he’s _wrong._ And I think you’re right and the test is just going to show an unusual conquest situation. Not something full of ‘impurities,’ whatever that means.” He hesitated. “ _You’re_ willing to go through with this?”

“I’ll support you in whatever you choose to do.”

Harry practically melted against him. Draco gently gathered Harry close and they moved to where _they_ could Apparate.

Flowering in the back of Draco’s mind was his intention to ask if Black was serious about adopting Harry. That would give him the backing of a powerful pure-blood name for practical reasons as well as being another slap in the face to Dumbledore and the Potters.

But first…

He rather thought he and Harry had earned a rest.


	22. Resting Time

As they came out of the whirl of Apparition, Harry staggered, and Draco seized his shoulder. Harry turned his head and saw the look in his eyes, savage, triumphant, as if all the opposition he had offered to Dumbledore, everything important he was, had caught on fire.

Harry swallowed, but the motion wasn’t one of fear. He reached out and laid a hand on Draco’s chest. Draco held still to let him feel his heartbeat.

“All right?” Harry asked, and Draco made a soft sound and reached for him.

Harry leaned hard against his chest, closing his eyes. Draco’s arms wrapped around him again, the way they had during the Apparition, but relaxing more the longer they stood there. Harry found himself holding his breath without knowing why. The dangerous moment was past. Surely he should relax as much as Draco.

Then Draco’s hands started wandering.

Harry’s breath released, then caught in his throat again. He tipped his head back and further back, and his throat ached with a sweetness that was like exhaustion when he finally got to go to bed. Draco’s hands sculpted Harry’s cheeks, his hair, his throat, like he was bringing Harry out of stone into the light.

“What is this?” Harry asked, when he managed to remember that such things as words existed in the world again.

“You know it by the same name as I do,” Draco whispered back, his words tumbling against Harry’s earlobe as if they held weight. “A name that neither of us need to speak.” He touched Harry’s bonding bracelet then, sending it spinning delicately around Harry’s wrist. There was nothing to make it ring, but Harry thought he heard a faint _chime_ anyway. “Something that’s been a long time coming.”

“That’s true enough.” And Harry leaned forwards and surrendered with his own open-mouthed kiss.

Draco never sped up, even as he stood there and allowed Harry to kiss him as fast as he wanted, until they were both shivering and gasping. Then he started steering Harry with utter calmness towards the bedroom. Harry was as cooperative as he could be, but he was walking backwards most of the time, and it wasn’t a surprise when his back slammed into a wall and he grunted.

“We can do it,” Draco said, which didn’t make much sense to Harry, but then, by the light in Draco’s eyes, nothing much _needed_ to make sense right now. “I can do what I want…” His words trailed off, and he dropped to his knees in front of Harry.

Harry shuddered and shoved his hips forwards so hard that he was afraid Draco would laugh. But Draco showed no inclination to laugh. He was stroking Harry’s hips instead, one thumb feeling the bone, his gaze on Harry’s face, a joyful smile on his mouth.

“If you don’t do something soon,” Harry said, through the dried spit in his mouth, “then I’m going to have to bend down and do it myself.”

Draco did laugh then, but Harry could never have mistaken it for malicious even if he had still been a Potter. He pulled Harry’s robes open and touched Harry’s cock, rolling it gently, and rubbed his mouth over it.

“ _Tease_.”

“I mean what I suck,” Draco said, so haughty it was ridiculous, and fastened his mouth around Harry.

It was better than before, the thick rush of wetness around Harry’s shaft, the way Draco’s hands remained rubbing on his hips, and the way his tongue curled and lashed. Harry was grateful for the wall behind him. As it was, his legs were splayed wide enough that he whimpered from the pain, but he couldn’t bring himself to close them or stop thrusting.

“Look at you,” Draco said, his voice husky as he pulled back. His hand kept working, and so Harry didn’t realize for a second that his mouth was gone. He let his eyes open slowly, and Draco muttered something he couldn’t hear, his hand pausing. “With my bonding bracelet on your wrist, and that shine _I_ gave you in your eyes…”

Harry reached down and grabbed for Draco’s chin. He ended up putting a finger on his lips. Draco promptly sucked at it, his eyes deepening.

“Please.”

Draco nodded. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve made you suffer long enough. Wait long enough. And myself, too.” He drew his wand, cast a Lightening Charm on Harry, and abruptly scooped him up in his arms and carried him into the bedroom. Harry clung to his neck, laughing for a second and then groaning as Draco tossed him on the bed.

“What is it?” Draco asked, pausing with his wand in his hand as if he thought he would need to cast another spell. Harry couldn’t imagine what they would need now that they were _here_.

“I don’t like you being so far away.”

Draco’s eyes darkened again, until Harry could hardly see into them at all, and then he cast a spell that made their robes flicker away and vanish. Harry stared at him, lips slightly parted, as Draco flung himself down next to Harry and reached out to kiss him.

“Now we’re closer together quicker.”

Harry lost any thought of objections he might have made—not that he had a _very_ clear idea of what they would have been—as Draco kissed him again. His tongue was licking Harry’s the way he’d licked Harry’s cock earlier, but it wasn’t quite as good. Harry pulled him in further and wrapped his legs around Draco’s waist, bringing their cocks together.

“ _Yes._ ”

*

Draco knew one of them said that aloud, but he didn’t know which one. Honestly, it didn’t matter which one.

He and Harry were together now, and they had really waited long enough, if Harry was ready for it.

Draco tried to find out, but every time he would have pulled his head away to ask the question, Harry kissed him again. His hands were almost desperate, and _everywhere_ , curving around the edges of Draco’s muscles, scraping him with teasing nails, making Draco gasp and grunt his way through it. Harry wriggled down towards Draco’s groin then, a shine in his eyes that told Draco exactly what he intended to do.

“No.”

“ _Really_ , no?” Harry asked, and stuck his tongue out so that it flickered over the edge of his lip.

Draco almost gave in, but he gasped the words that he thought would stop Harry instead. Nothing _else_ stood much of a chance of stopping Harry. “Can’t come inside your arse if I’ve done it in your mouth.”

Harry tensed for a second, and Draco thought, _Oh, fuck, he’s not ready the way I thought he was—_

But instead Harry scrambled up his body and the bed to kiss him again, and panted into his mouth, “An _excellent_ point.” And he reached down and took Draco’s wand away so smoothly Draco didn’t realize what he’d done until he’d done it, and aimed it at his own arse, and murmured a quick Lubrication Charm.

Draco gaped. Harry laughed. “You were the one who told me that my magic must be remarkable,” he said, and then wriggled and shook his head. “That _tickles_.”

"I just didn't know you knew the charm," Draco muttered, and thought he sounded silly. But he had been so surprised, his hands still shook as he reached out and spread his fingers over Harry's loose and sticky entrance.

"I've been reading _books._ "

Harry gasped the last word, since Draco had eased his fingers inside. Then he spread his legs and nodded enthusiastically, muttering something that was hard to hear, but which Draco thought was, "Yes, yes."

So Draco bent down and gently took his wand away and eased Harry back so he leaned against the pillows and his legs were open on the bed. "Sometimes doing a charm for the first time means you don't do it right," he explained when Harry lifted his eyebrows at him. "I have to make sure you did it right."

Harry's breaths turned shallow. Draco smiled to himself as he bent down and eased a third finger inside, along the other two.

Harry grunted, but made no other sound. Draco found himself unsatisfied. He _knew_ this was Harry's first time doing anything like this, and it should be more special. He should be almost _suffering_ from pleasure, from the desire to make Draco go further.

So Draco reached in and further in, and murmured, as he gently touched Harry in all the places he could reach, "Imagine what it's going to be like when I'm all the way inside you."

Harry gave a soft gasping cry. And it was the perfect sound, Draco didn't want anything louder, Harry actually put his arm across his eyes as if he thought Draco might see too much in his face, his cheeks were flushing, his lips trembled, Draco had found a way to make him feel _so good--_

His whirling thoughts came to a halt when Harry insisted, in words that had more than a shadow of Parseltongue, "That's enough. Get inside me now, or _you_ won't get to feel the way _I_ come."

It was enough.

Draco still lubed his cock, because he had to, because Harry hadn't thought to do it. Of course, at the moment that was almost more an advantage than otherwise, because he got to see the way Harry followed his movements with wide eyes and bounced a little in place. Then he spread his legs some more, as if Draco needed an invitation.

_As if it being Harry isn't enough of an invitation._

Draco did ease forwards slowly. First on his knuckles and then with his cock inside Harry, he kept waiting for some sign of pain or discomfort. But Harry only raised his eyebrows and met his gaze with such a challenge that Draco ended up shoving in harder than he meant to.

Harry only sighed and locked his legs around Draco's waist as if he wanted him to stay still and not thrust. "Thought you were taking forever. You know, the way you took forever to realize that I was the consort you were meant to have."

Draco spluttered for a full minute before he snapped, "You're going to _pay_ for that."

Harry draped his arm across his forehead again, but this time he left his eyes clearly visible--and gleaming. "Yes, the payment you demand is going to be so _rough_ \--"

He gasped as Draco began to move, began to thrust, the way he wanted to and the way everything in both their bodies was calling out for him to. Harry's eyes were wide, almost wild, with surprise, and he reached up and clutched Draco's arms as if he was trying to keep from falling out of a tree.

"Still think you're willing to pay it?" Draco muttered, somewhere between dazed and eloquent, on the far side of rising pleasure.

"You can't come up with any price that I wouldn't be willing to pay, for the pleasure of having you."

Draco stared down, and caught Harry's eyes. The way he looked...

Draco didn't know how to answer, so he went back to how good he felt, how warm Harry was around his cock, how bright his chest was gleaming with sweat. "Why are you still so coherent?" he muttered, and began to move.

*

Harry actually didn't know the answer to that question.

He was pleased all through, he was warm and almost bubbling with the warmth, he wanted to laugh, he could have reached out and captured the heart of anyone he saw right then. But the only one he wanted was Draco's.

And he wanted it so badly that he thought that was probably why he was coherent. He didn't want to miss a cord of Draco's throat as his head tilted back, or a shadow of pallor in his knuckles as his hands tightened around Harry's hips. His rasping breath was music, the line of his shoulders wonderful. Harry reached to touch them, but he was lying down and the only thing he did was tip them a bit.

" _Stop_ that," Draco said, opening one eye, and thrust hard enough that, this time, the coherency fell away.

Harry was still watching, but Draco hovered and buzzed in the middle of an unfolding darkness, something so thick and rich that he was dazed with it. And Draco gave him more and more pleasure, made him feel better and better, until he might have been floating in a pool of butter on a warm clear afternoon with nothing to do.

“Are you ready to go deeper?”

 _Now who’s the one who’s too coherent?_ But Harry nodded, and then nodded some more, until he felt certain that his chin was slamming against Draco. He didn’t open his eyes to check.

Draco chuckled and began to move faster. Harry couldn’t resent him for the chuckle. This was the way it was meant to be. He was drifting in the middle of gold. He was swimming through it. He was soaring with Draco. His fingers entwined with Draco’s and squeezed, and Draco squeezed back.

There was so much here.

And he had nearly given it up because he’d thought he was destined to be alone forever.

Harry opened his eyes at the thought and gazed up at his glittering savior. Draco panted back at him. There was a bead of sweat rolling down his chin, and Harry watched it, squeezing again and again around Draco, until it rolled to the point where it had to fall off.

And it did.

The moment Draco’s sweat splashed onto his chest, Harry came.

It was better, so much better, than before. He was soaring again, and Draco was laughing above him and tracing a finger down his breastbone and Harry couldn’t feel it as his back bent like a bow and he cried out from the pleasure storming him and wringing him out—

The moment sped past and dropped him, the way it had to. Harry let his head roll limply on the pillow and closed his eyes. He was panting, his mouth open and his lips parted to sip the air. He felt Draco shift inside him and realized he hadn’t come yet.

“Well, go on,” he whispered.

“What encouragement,” Draco wheezed, and then he bent his own back and hammered his hips forwards, seeking his completion.

Harry reached up and stroked his throat, and Draco gave a grunting cry of surprise and followed him. Harry sighed. This wasn’t the same as coming himself, the feel of Draco coming inside him, but it was pretty close.

He didn’t move. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t have to move. Even though Draco had dropped down on top of him, the weight was pretty manageable. Harry curved an arm around Draco’s shoulders and closed his eyes.

He was glad that he hadn’t had to be alone all his life, hadn’t gone on believing that he would somehow release Voldemort’s magic and attack anyone he got passionate with. And it was thanks to Draco that that hadn’t happened.

_Are you done mating now?_

Harry opened one eye, the right one, because it was the closest to the bedroom door. M.H. slid in and looked around, his tongue darting out as he carefully investigated the scents in the air. Harry snorted. “Yes, if you want to come in.”

Draco moaned on top of him. Harry blinked up at him, wondering if he had some reason for not wanting M.H. to come in right now, and Draco stroked his throat in turn and sighed. “I wish I could get it up again right now. I never realized how—affecting hearing you speak Parseltongue is.”

“Oh.” Harry closed his eyes because he really thought he would reveal more than he should if he opened them right now. Draco had made _everything_ about Harry something to be proud of, including the snake language that supposedly proved he was as evil as Voldemort.

As M.H. climbed the bed and draped himself along Harry’s free side, Draco touched his face and whispered, “Look at me. No, don’t try to blink away the tears. Weep if you want to. Just look at me.”

Harry did so, and only one tear slid free after all. Draco rubbed it between his fingers and smiled at him. “So. Listen. What you need to do is realize that you _always deserved this_ , okay? Be grateful to me if you want to, but understand that you don’t have to. Your parents and Dumbledore were in the wrong for exiling you. You have so much potential. You can stand on your own, independent from me, if you want to.” Draco hesitated, then added, “I hope you never want to. But you don’t _have_ to depend on me for anything.”

“I’m not just—grateful,” Harry said, hating how unsteady his voice was. He reached up and clasped Draco’s hand. “I’m so glad that you kept me from thinking I was evil for the rest of my life. And that’s not gratitude. That’s love.”

Draco froze for a second. Then he plunged his head down, eyes glowing with triumph, and took Harry’s mouth in a kiss that made Harry regret he didn’t have any more energy right now, either.

They rolled to the side, and M.H. hissed in agitation and dropped off the bed. _You are not done mating after all._

Harry, with his mouth pinned under Draco’s, didn’t bother to correct him.


	23. Through the Gate

“Neither of us is going through that until you tell us what it does.”

Sirius gave them such a big-eyed glance that Harry would have melted and gone through the misty grey doorway in the wall, but Draco wouldn’t let him. His hand was locked on Harry’s arm. He didn’t move even when Harry tugged.

“ _Draco_.”

“ _Harry_. You’ve spent your life being mistreated by people who couldn’t just tell you the truth. I’m not about to let it happen again.”

Harry blinked. Then he faced Sirius. “That is a legitimate point. If this is something you want me to do, it shouldn’t be a big deal to tell the truth, should it?”

Sirius sighed and looked away from both of them, as well as the swirling grey portal that had opened in the wall of Grimmauld Place. Harry had been watching as closely as he could before it happened, and he was pretty sure that there hadn’t been a door there before. The mist that filled it shifted constantly, but showed nothing beyond even though it almost looked transparent.

“This is part of the ritual that’s required if a new Black heir is being accepted into the family.” Sirius spoke in a strained voice, and Harry looked sharply at him. If Sirius was regretting what he had offered Harry…

But then he saw the pallor of Sirius’s face, and the way sweat was sliding down his cheeks, and he started to believe that this wasn’t just a joke or Marauder stupidity.

“You really can’t talk about it anymore than that, can you?” Harry whispered.

Sirius gasped and abruptly sagged forwards, catching himself by his knuckles on a little end table next to the couch. “No,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I would if I could, pup. I really would. I know what your Malfoy means that you deserve the truth. But the magic doesn’t let me. It’s like waking up with a wet sock stuffed in your mouth after a night of drinking.”

“Should I ask _why_ you’re familiar with that particular disgusting taste?” Draco asked, wrinkling his face hard enough to make it distort. Harry leaned on him and hid his smile against Draco’s shoulder.

“You could ask, but it wouldn’t do any good, because I don’t remember.”

Harry did laugh aloud this time, and ignored the way Draco glanced at him. He thought the mist in the doorway had swirled in time to his laughter. “Tell me one thing, if you can,” he added, because Sirius’s eyes had gone wary. “Does whatever is waiting for me through that doorway want to kill me?”

“No,” Sirius said, and gulped a little. “It wants to test you.”

“And if Harry fails the test, then he’ll die, right?” Draco snarled. His eyes gleamed like a werewolf’s.

“No. He’ll be found unworthy of being the Black heir, and I won’t be allowed to adopt him or give him my last name.”

Draco cocked his head slowly. Harry couldn’t really tell what he was thinking, but he knew the bright gleam of his eyes didn’t portend good things. Harry shook his head and touched his arm. “Sirius is doing what he can to make sure that I survive and get revenge on my family. That’s all he can do.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

“He also could have done more when you were a baby,” Draco muttered, for Harry’s ears alone.

Harry chose to ignore that. Honestly, what else was Sirius supposed to do? He would have got himself thrown into Azkaban if he’d followed some of the suggestions Draco had made when Harry asked him.

And he wouldn’t get anything done by standing here and angsting about what Sirius or Draco might say next. Harry stepped forwards. “I work through that gate and the mist closes about me,” he told Sirius. “And the test is waiting for me?”

Sirius had started to look strained again, but he stood up and nodded at that. “Yes. It won’t make itself hard to find.”

Harry grimaced a little. _Wonderful_. He had no idea how to do this. He hadn’t received the pure-blood education that Draco had and his siblings probably had and Draco was always ranting Harry should have. Well. He would go in and do his best.

“You don’t have to risk death in order to get revenge on your family, Harry. We’ll find something else.”

“Sirius said it wasn’t death,” Harry pointed out to him, not looking away from the gate. He didn’t have to turn around to hear Draco’s teeth grinding.

“It isn’t.”

“I love you,” Harry told Draco softly, and while he was standing there wide-eyed, leaned over and kissed his cheek, and then turned and plunged into the mist of the gateway.

*

“I’m not going to forgive you if this test ends up taking his life,” Draco told Black, his gaze fixed on the gateway. The frame looked as if it were made of ivory or bone. Either material would have told him something about the nature of the test Harry faced, but not knowing which it was, Draco couldn’t tell anything much. “He’s come this far and he deserves to have a life filled with peace and love, not more challenges.”

“You think I’d forgive _myself_?”

Draco gave Black a sharp look. The strain that meant he was trying to talk about something forbidden had left his face, but his gaze was still fixed, stricken, on the doorway.

_I suppose he does care for Harry in his own way. And not being able to do something for him when he was a baby…_

Draco sighed. For a few days he’d carried guilt for not realizing that something was up with the contract earlier and he had originally been betrothed to the Potters’ firstborn. But agony and guilt did no one any good, so he’d released them. He might have to hold Black innocent of the same offenses.

They stood in silence, and watched the mist, as grey as a pearl, shift back and forth.

*

Harry walked almost four steps, and then stopped. The mist was already drifting away, and he was standing next to a lake so blue that it seared his eyes. He blinked and looked up. Yes, there was a sunny sky above, or the lake wouldn’t have been so bright. He shook his head slowly. “What kind of test is this?”

“One I administer.”

Harry whipped around, his hand on his wand, even though he thought it wouldn’t do him much good here. A slender figure stepped towards him. It looked like a woman, at least in the face and the long flowing white hair down its back, but its body was green and joined like a giant insect’s. Its arms waved gently back and forth.

“Are you something connected to the Black family?”

“I am their first magical ancestor.” The—woman, Harry decided, because that was less confusing—cocked her head to the side and studied him. “They don’t acknowledge me because I wasn’t human, and they like to pretend they are, completely.”

That reminded Harry enough of what his family had done that he muttered, “It seems the wizarding world has a problem with that.”

“I do not smell any creature blood in you.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m a Parselmouth, and I changed from a Light wizard to a Dark one when I was a year old and a Dark wizard attacked me and I conquered his magic. My family is Light, and they didn’t like that. They said I was a Squib and exiled me, and then they disowned me when I came back.”

The woman gave a slight, graceful hop backwards, like a grasshopper. The stone around the lake was blossoming into high grass. Harry watched it and kept his hand on his wand. “Come with me. We have something to talk about.”

 _At least she didn’t say “much_ ,” Harry thought as he followed her. That might mean he wouldn’t be here long, and that meant he wouldn’t distress Draco any more than absolutely necessary.

“This is a seat you may sit in if you think yourself worthy of it,” the woman said, when they had come down a small slope and then up a hillock that humped in front of them. She gestured. On top of the hillock was a black stone that, Harry realized slowly after he’d looked at it for a few seconds, was carved in the shape of a throne.

He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

“Why not? You deserve it. You could sit in it and be more comfortable than you would be on stone and grass while we talked.”

Harry turned and looked at her. He was sure this was part of the test, although he had no idea what it was meant to show. That he was going to reign over the Black family? That he _wasn’t_? “I don’t think I deserve a throne.”

“Why not? Has your family succeeded in shaming you so thoroughly that you won’t claim what many men would think of as their rightful due?” The woman rested her chin on one of her legs. “How sad.”

Harry had to smile a little, thinking of how those words might make Draco storm straight up the hill to the throne. The woman blinked at him. “I don’t deserve it because I’m not a ruler. I don’t actually want to rule anything. I want to bond with my betrothed, and I want to get to know my godfather. I want my parents to pay for what they did, and I want a peaceful life. But being a ruler wouldn’t get me that.”

The woman’s hair flowed slowly to the side, the only sign that she was cocking her head. Harry couldn’t actually see her do it. “Was the wizard you defeated a Dark Lord?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“It would account for my sense that you would take the throne. Does he still live in you?”

Harry sucked in a hoarse breath. “They said he did, and that was part of their basis for exiling me. Are you saying they were _right_?”

“You cannot hurt me even if I was saying that,” the woman murmured in response, and she stretched out one great insect leg. Harry gripped his wand, but she only shook her head. “Shhh. I won’t hurt you. I want to confirm something.”

Harry decided, reluctantly, that there was no point to her slaughtering every Black heir who came into the mists in search of the test. Their family would probably think it was more humiliating, and therefore more fun, if they lived and staggered out knowing of their failure. He let her touch his forehead.

His scar.

There was a flash of black light. The woman pulled back her leg and shook it a little. Then she said, “The Darkest magic is concentrated there. Not his spirit, not his will, but it’s no wonder some people thought it could be. That is a core of power you have hardly begun to tap.”

Harry stood there for a second, swaying. It wasn’t because of the black light. He had seen that, but he hadn’t felt a thing.

He was remembering some of the magical theory he’d read in the books that Draco had lent him, the magical education that Draco was always insisting he should have.

He whispered, “I read once about a man whose wand was very powerful. Specially made. I think the book said it had a Lethifold’s shadow inside the core. The wand would move on its own even after he died. Does that—is my scar like that? The Dark magic inside it could make it move?”

“It would be rare, but it could happen.” The woman lifted her head as if she would get a better look at him from another angle. “And I think you are rare enough that it is more likely than otherwise.”

Harry shut his eyes. “So it’s just—really Dark magic. Concentrated there.”

“Yes.”

“Why would it be concentrated there?”

“How did he try to kill you? Dark Lords would not ordinarily try to duel babies.”

“He aimed the Killing Curse at me. That’s all I know.”

The woman nodded. “He probably aimed the Killing Curse between your eyes. Many who use it do so. They want to watch the life fade from the eyes of their victims. It makes sense that the Darkest magic left over is bound near the kill site.” She paused, eyes staring into the distance as if she heard something he didn’t. “I would be careful trying to use that Dark magic. Though it has no will of its own, or _his_ own, it is absurdly powerful and might well whip out of your control if you are not careful.”

“I didn’t know about it before today, so I didn’t try to use it. But thank you for the warning.”

The woman flicked her leg a little. “What kind of heir is the present Black family head adopting? Someone who does not want to sit in a throne, someone who has not received the basic magical training every child of my family line should…”

“Someone who has a lot of ambition and magic,” said Harry, and met her stare for stare. “Someone who still doesn’t know what the test is that I came here to pass, but then, I suppose that you don’t think me worthy to tell, either.”

The woman sighed between her small teeth. “Don’t be like that. I suppose it was stupid of me to say, anyway. You’re also a Parselmouth, and you’re—what were you before your family disowned you? What line?”

“Potter.”

The woman clapped her legs together. “And they got _rid_ of you? They must have declined. At any rate, as far as I am concerned, you have passed the test.”

Harry stared at her. “What do you mean?” He glanced at the black throne again. “Was it not going up there and sitting in that thing?”

“It’s a test of character, something that the young Blacks didn’t have that much of all that often.” The woman shook her head and sighed again. “I tested you for honesty, for your opinion of yourself, for power, and for strength of character. You’ve passed all of them. I didn’t know you would until you started speaking. But you managed to pleasantly surprise me. It’s been a long time since I had a _pleasant_ surprise.”

Harry nodded slowly. He supposed he could see why the Black family magic had kept Sirius from talking about this. There was no way to speak the truth if you were trying to think of what to say all the time, what would be the right answer. “Were you like that?”

“Was I like what?”

“Honest and powerful and strong of character. When you were alive, or out in the world.” He supposed it was possible she might still be alive if she wasn’t human. It seemed like centaurs and vampires and others could live a long time.

The woman shook her head, smiling a little. “That’s not the test you came here to pass. But you may return now. Simply do not speak of what you saw here to anyone who might have a direct influence on the Black family inheritance and need to prove themselves worthy of claiming it.” She waved a leg. “Then again, the magic would prevent you from saying something anyway. Speak to your lover if you like.”

“And the magic will prevent him from saying anything to our children?”

“Yes. What family are you bonding into?”

“The Malfoys.”

The woman tipped her head back and forth. “A good choice. The family that adopted you is making a good choice, and so is the family that you’ll bond into. A shame that your own blood made a different choice.”

“Yeah,” Harry said softly. “A shame.” He was starting to wonder how much of it was. Some of it was Dahlia’s magic, of course, and some of it was the fact that his parents were paranoid about Dark magic to the point that they wanted to be purely “Light,” but the rest of it…

It might all come back to Dumbledore and _his_ incredible paranoia about Voldemort continuing to exist.

The woman extended a leg. “My congratulations. I look forward to meeting one of your children when the time comes for you to choose a new heir to the Black line.”

Harry shook it, and then turned towards the door again. “I just walk back up the hill and around the lake? The gate will be there?”

“Of _course_ it will be there. This is my place most of the time. Why would I want to share it with humans for more than a short period of time, no matter how talented they are?”

Harry grinned at her over his shoulder, and then began to jog.

*

Harry stumbled out of the gate, and Draco snatched him and swept him up. He held Harry as close as he could, feeling the warmth of his arms and the beat of his heart and his laughing protests. He was _safe_ , and Draco didn’t have to worry about his attempt to fit better into pure-blood society costing them both something they could never repay.

“What happened?” he murmured.

“I met one of the Black ancestresses. She had to decide if I was worthy to bear the name.” Harry leaned around him to speak to Black. “She did.”

“Oh, good. I didn’t ever really understand why she chose me, especially since my parents tried to disown me later, so I didn’t know if you would come back out.”

Draco held on more firmly to Harry, to keep from killing Black. Harry made soothing clucking noises at him. “Will you tell me what happened?” Draco whispered into his ear.

“Of course. But the magic will prevent us from telling our children, just in case one of them goes in there to try for the Black inheritance.”

Draco choked on something more than air for a second. _Our children_.

Harry pulled back, winked at him, and turned to say something to Black. It was about power and the scar on his forehead, and Draco knew he should listen.

But they had time. He could always ask Harry to repeat it.

For the moment, he wanted to stand there and watch his consort, the line of his back straight and his smile free and easy, and clad in a new name. Harry Black.


	24. Reconcilations on the Horizon

 

Harry sighed and put a hand over his face as he watched Sirius surround the owl with a cube of blue light. "Will you let the poor thing _go_? Even if it turned out that it was delivering a cursed letter to me, it wouldn't be the bird's fault."

"I'm not going to take chances with your safety." Sirius gave Harry a grin across the table. "You can think of it as me being an overprotective father."

"I haven't needed a father so far."

"You supposedly didn't need a lover, either." Draco wrapped his arms around Harry's waist and draped his chin over his shoulder to watch Sirius cast another spell that showered the blue cube with sparks and made the owl hoot irritably. "But you have both now, and you're not getting rid of us for the asking."

Harry laughed a little and leaned back, closing his eyes as he let Draco's warmth wash over him. "I just don't think it's the owl's fault, is all. If you distrust my parents, then you could test the letter and leave the owl out of it."

"Sometimes those spells are less accurate." Sirius drew a cross with his wand, and the letter turned red. The owl turned unimpressed.

"How often?"

"Not very often," Sirius said shamelessly, without looking away from the bird.

Harry had to shake his head. Then he reached out and snatched the last muffin just as Draco absent-mindedly reached for it. Draco scowled at him. "That has poppy seeds."

"Which is why I should have it, and not you," Harry said, and bit into it. "Because I've been more deprived during my lifetime of sweet things."

Draco abruptly melted like treacle tart, leaning over him and breathing, "That's true. I didn't think about it. You must tell me right away if I ever--"

" _Draco_." Harry waited until he was sure that Draco was listening to him before he continued. "Sometimes I'm going to joke about what happened to me, okay? That's one way of dealing with it. I made jokes when it was just me and M.H., too. You need to go along with it. Don't always think you need to give me the muffins."

Draco was silent, intent, and Harry hoped he had the impression (the true one) that Harry was talking about far more than just muffins. Then he nodded and kissed Harry on the back of his neck, before adding to Sirius, "Have you determined yet whether they cursed the letter?"

"I'm about ninety-nine percent sure they didn't," Sirius announced cheerfully, and released the owl from its cube of light. The owl hooted again, this time in what sounded like relief to Harry, and spread its wings, but Sirius reached out and Summoned the letter from its foot before it could. Harry stared at him. Sirius added, "That's because of the other one percent."

The owl flew to the perch in the corner and began eating the owl treats there to soothe its ruffled feelings. M.H. came slithering around the corner and stopped, staring in fascination.

"You can't eat it," Harry told him.

 _I don't see why not_.

"Because."

M.H. gave this as serious a study as though he had never heard that word in Parseltongue before. _This is a reason?_

"No curse!" Sirius said, before Harry could think of a reasonable way to deter M.H. He sent the letter flying over to Harry with yet another wand-flick, and Harry accepted it and turned it over. The seal was the heavy Potter crest, the one he had never been entitled to use even before his disownment. He shook his head.

"Are they _trying_ to make a bad impression?"

"At this point, how could they make a good one?" Draco asked. "I'm more interested in what the letter says than what seal they used. Of course they'll try to make themselves look like a good little Light wizarding family on the outside. What does it _say_?"

Harry snickered and broke the seal, then rapidly scanned the letter inside. He blinked. Then he said slowly, "It says they want to reconcile with me. Or James does, anyway. There's nothing about Lily here. And they sound sincere."

"Black, cast again," Draco snapped as he ripped the letter away, almost fast enough to actually rip the paper. "There's clearly a Confundus Charm here that doesn't activate until the right person touches the parchment."

"Draco, for _fuck's_ sake--" Harry lunged after the letter, and Draco held it over his head. Harry stood up on the chair to get to it, and Draco pulled him back down into his lap.

"Why do you want to forgive your parents?"

"I never said I did." Harry snatched the letter again, and watched as a small tear appeared in the corner of the parchment. Well, as long as it was small, they could cast _Reparo_ on it. "I said they sounded sincere."

"See! See!"

"Let me read the letter, pup," said Sirius, and Harry rolled it up into a half-scroll and tossed it across the table to him before Draco could get hold of it again.

Draco slumped back down and glared at Harry when he caught his eye. "Why do you trust Black more than you trust me?"

"Oh, not _this_ shit," Harry said, which visibly startled Draco, enough to make him blink and start paying attention to Harry. "Look. It doesn't mean I trust Sirius more. It's just that I want the opinions of people who haven't already made up their minds."

"I still think James should be carved to death with a rusty spoon," Sirius volunteered, not looking up from the letter. "And I don't think Harry should forgive him. I just want to see if this was a trap."

"Why a rusty spoon?" Draco asked, after hesitating a moment. Harry grinned and leaned back against him, content when Draco curled an arm around his waist. He knew that tone, and it meant Draco was being more understanding.

"Because there are spells that would make it hurt more." Sirius finished reading and raised his eyebrows. "Well. It actually does sound sincere, not that I think about it. Maybe that's why James didn't let Lily have any part in writing it. Maybe she can't sound sincere yet."

“And you want to just let him go trotting off to the Potters, I suppose,” said Draco, his voice such a low snarl that Harry whipped around to stare at him. “You don’t care about what they did to him, either. With Harry, I can understand it. He still doesn’t value himself the way he should, most of the time. But I don’t understand what _you_ have to gain from this kind of pretense, Black.”

Sirius held out the letter. “You read it and see if it sounds sincere to you.”

A bigger tear spread across the letter, like a crack across hard ground, as Draco snatched the parchment back. Harry sighed and returned to spearing his toast with a long fork. He supposed Draco had reasons to be distrustful. But it was still…

 _Strange_ , sometimes. Wonderful, to have someone so much on his side that he would assume Harry needed to be protected like this. But strange.

*

_Harry,_

_I’ll leave off the dear until you decide if that’s something you want me to call you. But I wanted to say that I’m sorry I disowned you. I should at least have thought about it instead of just reacting._

_It’s strange to look back over the years and see how many things were just me reacting, from deciding it would be a good idea to exile you to being offended that your Malfoy wouldn’t think Dahlia was perfect. It’s like I was walking in a mist and thought it was clear sunlight. I know it’s the effect of being under Dahlia’s magic and then emerging from it. But I can see both the irrationality of my thoughts now and why they seemed rational to me at the time. I don’t know if this double vision will ever go away._

_I would like to reconcile with you, eventually. I can’t put you back as part of the Potter family, and you probably wouldn’t want that anyway. But if you want to talk to me and not anyone else from the family, just say the word. Or send word with Sirius or Malfoy. I promise that I don’t want to meet without them, and there won’t be anyone else around._

_Please answer, even if it’s just to tell me to fuck off. I’m sorry._

_James Potter._

Part of Draco noted with approval that James hadn’t tried to say that he was Harry’s father or anything like that. And he hadn’t blamed Harry for what had happened. That was probably part of what made the letter sound sincere to Harry and Black.

But the rest of him was so deep in frozen rage that he didn’t care. Did James Potter think he could make up for _nineteen years_ of neglect? Because that was what it really was. Harry might have been in exile for “only” nine years, but he’d been ignored at home before that, and told he was evil, and convinced that he could never have a lover or a family or a normal life.

And they had tried to tell him he couldn’t have magic, either. That was the part Draco could not forgive. There were wizards who never married or had children and were estranged from their families, who still led happy lives. There were none who thought they were Squibs who were happy.

“You won’t answer, of course. Or you’ll answer and decline.”

“No, I won’t.”

Draco turned his head slowly. He had seen his father do the same thing when he wanted to be intimidating, but he hadn’t actually _planned_ on copying his father’s mannerisms. It was just something that had happened.

Harry stared into his eyes. “I get to make the decisions,” he said, and reached out and flicked Draco on the nose. “That means answering and meeting him somewhere public, with you and Sirius along.”

“I don’t want you to.” Draco held Harry’s eyes, and he spoke evenly. It would make things worse if he yelled. Harry had heard enough yelling in his life. That he seemed to want to get back into a situation where he would hear _more_ yelling was ridiculous, but not enough to make Draco lose his temper. “Consider that. The man you’re in love with, who loves you, doesn’t want you to go.”

“Why not?”

“Because they treated you like _shit_. And they shouldn’t get a second chance.”

“First of all, this is only James, and not Lily,” Harry said, with the kind of patient good humor that made Draco wonder who had taught him to speak like that. Then he realized it was probably him. “So _he_ , not _they_. And second, what made you think I intended to forgive him? I said I wouldn’t, and that’s still true.”

Draco stared. “But—he’s said he wants to reconcile, and you’re still considering going.”

Harry bobbed his head and widened his eyes a little. “No shit.”

Black laughed from across the table. Draco didn’t bother looking at him. Harry mattered more than anything Black could say, and always would. “Then what are you going to do if you aren’t going to forgive him?”

“Listen to him. I’m kind of interested in the justifications for what he said, and what’s he like now that he’s not living under Dahlia’s influence.” Harry carried blithely on before Draco could tell him again why it didn’t matter what James was like. “And I want to see his reactions when I tell him about what Dumbledore tried to make Dahlia do.”

“What she was _willing_ to do.”

“Oh, I know. But I don’t think she would have had the courage to try and enslave you if he hadn’t put her up to it.”

Draco wavered, then ended up shrugging irritably. Harry was probably right. “All right. But why don’t you think he already knows about it?”

“Because I really think he would have said something about it in the letter. It’s not like his space was especially limited.”

Draco paused. If that was the case, then he, too, wanted to see at least one Potter’s face when they heard how Dumbledore had tried to use the eldest child they still acknowledged as part of their family. But it shouldn’t involve Harry putting himself in any kind of danger, even danger of getting insulted. “I’ll go and tell him, and then you can watch my memory in a Pensieve.”

"No." Harry's voice was soft but full of authority. "That's not how it's going to work, Draco."

"I wouldn't lie to you! Or fake the memory, or whatever you're worried about."

"And I don't think James is going to ambush me, or whatever _you're_ worried about."

Draco had to pause again. Then he said, "You promised me that nothing would ever make you forgive them."

"And I won't. But I told you that already." Harry eyed him. "I think you're more worried than you need to be. That's all."

Draco sighed. "I can see this is an argument that I'm going to lose," he muttered, and ignored the way Black laughed again from across the table. "Fine. But we are both going with you, and so is M.H."

Nodding, Harry turned around. "I should write the letter and send it back as soon as possible so that we can be sure--" His words exploded abruptly into an indecipherable hiss of Parseltongue.

Draco whipped his wand out. But there was nothing to be afraid of, he saw after a moment, only a rather fat and lumpy bushmaster surrounded by a few bloodstained feathers.

Harry demanded something, or at least Draco thought it sounded like that from the tone. A soft shiver ran up his spine. One of his few regrets was that he couldn't understand Parseltongue. Of course, having a lover who did speak it and would do so whenever Draco wanted to hear him was a great compensation.

M.H. replied, and slithered out of the room. Harry put his head in his hands.

"Did he say why he ate the owl?" Black asked. Draco glanced at him, and saw some of the same glint of humor struggling to surface in Black's eyes.

"He said it was a snack, and we didn't try hard enough to prevent him from eating it, we didn't even notice when he bit it, so obviously it was here for him and we shouldn't bring birds into the house we can't protect."

Black stood up. "I'll find another owl for you. It's not as though I don't have plenty. Even a few James might still recognize." He winked and left the room. Draco heard him howling with laughter again before the door swung shut.

"Take M.H. with us," Draco told Harry again as he looked up through his fingers with a mortified expression.

"So he can eat more owls?"

"Because he won't be dangerous to other people since he just ate, but he still looks really impressive," Draco said, and squeezed Harry's hand until he saw him smile.

*

"Harry. Thanks for coming."

James was trembling a little, and he spoke with his eyes fastened on Harry, as if he didn't see Draco or Sirius at all. Harry didn't know whether to worry about that or not. At least it meant he was also ignoring M.H.

Harry had played out this scene in his mind so many times, except in his imagination it happened in the Potter house and not the Leaky Cauldron. And he didn't have anyone else with him, and Mum and his siblings were here too...

Harry sighed and let the fantasy drift away. _I didn't even really have to make the promise to Draco not to forgive them. Too much has happened for this to be different._

"You're welcome," Harry said, and started to pull out the chair opposite to James at his little table, except Sirius had already pulled it out and sat in it, and Draco was tugging one free with a command in his eyes. It was the one furthest away from James, with Draco and Sirius both in between him and his former father. Harry rolled his eyes and sat down. He barely noticed Draco casting privacy charms around their table that would blur what everyone could hear and see. "Why did you want to come?'

"I told you about the way it felt to come out of--the compulsion Dahlia laid on us."

Harry nodded, and said nothing else. For one thing, Draco had an arm wrapped around him so tightly that it might actually cut off his air.

"I'm questioning other things, too," said James, and frowned and ran a hand through his hair. "Things that I don't think were like Dahlia's compulsion, but similar to it. When I was under that spell, lots of things people told me just made a lot more sense. It made sense that you had Voldemort's magic and you were evil." He stared at Harry. "And it made sense that Dumbledore was obsessed with Voldemort coming back."

"If you're trying to blame Harry for that, you really should shut up, James," Sirius advised him. He had a thoughtful look in his eyes that made Harry worry he might be about to conjure up another rusty spoon.

"No, I'm only explaining what happened. And I don't think Dumbledore used his magic on me, either. It was just easier to believe those paranoid speculations because I was also being influenced by Dahlia."

"I understand," Harry said, and smiled a little at the way James looked at him. Draco's arm tightened. Harry rolled his eyes. Let Draco do what he wanted. Harry was still the one who had to approve this. "So you don't really believe that my magic is evil or that I'm Voldemort waiting to be reborn?"

"No." James hesitated for a second. "One thing you should understand is that Dumbledore fought Voldemort for so long that he started--thinking he was capable of more than he was maybe actually capable of. Voldemort got away so many times and won so many battles when we thought we should have won them. I wouldn't blame the Headmaster for thinking that he must have invented some way of taking over your body."

"You might not blame him. I would."

Harry's turn to squeeze Draco this time, and he nodded to James. "Anyway. I'm going to take a test with the Unspeakables monitoring it to show that I'm not Voldemort."

"Will he actually believe that?"

"We'll have to see, won't we?"

James hesitantly cleared his throat. "I know that I can't reverse the disownment. I'm sorry. But--I could still give you some gifts from the Potter vaults. Galleons, artifacts, that should have been yours. Other than anything I can't give you because it's bound to the Potter bloodline, anything you can ask for is yours."

"Why would he need your money when he has mine?" Sirius murmured. He was leaning back with his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head.

"What?"

"Harry's _my_ son now," Sirius said, and opened a lazy eye to look at James. "He passed the trial that every Black heir has to pass, and now his last name is Black. Really, James. You think he would want _Potter_ gold? Tsk."

James did gape with his jaw dropped. Harry smiled. He would have been sorry to miss it, if he had given in to Draco's pleas and stayed behind.

"And Dahlia tried to attack me and force me to love her outside your home, at the command of Dumbledore," Draco added. His chin was on Harry's shoulder and his voice as lazy as Sirius's, although his eyes were fully open, gleaming, and vicious. "I suppose you don't know that, either, and think Harry should just _trust_ that Potter gifts aren't poisoned."

James sat imprisoned in silence.

"So you can see why I don't want Potter gold and you're not going to get Black forgiveness," Harry finished, as gently as he could. "If you just want to talk and apologize some more, though? We could do that." He stroked M.H., who had wound up the chair leg to rest his head on Harry's free shoulder. "If you remember who I am, a Parselmouth and a Dark wizard. And a Black."

It took James long, struggling moments to work his way past whatever he wanted to say. But then he did whisper, "All right. I can accept that, because I have to."

"You have to," Harry said serenely, and waited.

James looked him in the eye and smiled, a little unsteadily. "I'm starting to get a sense of the son I lost."

"And won't ever be getting back."

 _Trust Draco to twist the knife_ , Harry thought, rolling his eyes, but his silence was perhaps as unforgiving.

Which was the way it should be. And they did have a fairly pleasant conversation and lunch after that, minus Sirius's insistence on testing all of Harry's food for poison and Draco's steady stare at James.

It would never change back to what it could have been. But they might move forwards.


	25. Lily and Her Children

“I don’t know why Dahlia did that. I don’t know what to think about her now.”

That had been the last thing James said before he left, and the words had rung in Harry’s ears most of the day. He stepped out of the shower and began to thoughtfully dry his hair. He wondered if that was one reason James had apologized multiple times, for multiple things, fretful and distracted.

He wondered if that was one reason Lily hadn’t tried to reach out to him yet: because she was still trying to come to terms with what her daughter had done.

“Harry?”

“In here.” Harry wandered into their bedroom, and watched Draco step back from the window. A streak of pink light had joined the muted green glow of the other wards. Harry raised an eyebrow. “Expecting an attack?”

“Expecting that what they tried once, they might try again.” Draco turned away from the window and embraced him, nuzzling into Harry’s shoulder. “This will prevent anyone from using wandless magic to get into the house. And it will prevent anyone from walking out of the house if they’re under the _influence_ of wandless magic.”

“Hey.” Harry gently turned Draco’s head so he was looking at Harry. “I think that was a one-time thing. I was never susceptible to that magic Dahlia used, for whatever reason. I don’t think Dumbledore would try an attack on you or me with her again.”

“Do you want to risk it? Because I don’t.”

Draco’s eyes were dark and burning, and Harry recognized the need in him. “Of course not,” he said, and stretched his neck up so that he could kiss Draco. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

Draco’s hand slid down his back as they kissed, and he pulled away the towel draped around Harry’s hips. Then he moved him towards the bed. Harry went, grinning a little. Sometimes he thought Draco was overprotective, but mostly he reveled in the way Draco wanted to take care of him.

Draco licked the side of his neck, and then worked his way down Harry’s body, with nips and breaths and touches of his fingers, until Harry was writhing. Then Draco spread his hand out over Harry’s groin and held it there, staring into Harry’s eyes.

Harry licked his lips. He didn’t know what Draco wanted. “Like this?” he finally asked, and thrust up with his hips.

Draco shut his eyes and hissed as Harry’s cock slid across his palm. “Yes, just like that,” he whispered, and turned his hand sideways, and closed his fingers loosely around Harry’s shaft. “Thrust for me. Fuck my hand.”

Harry was doing it almost before Draco had finished the words, the sudden need in himself burning like the hot water from the shower and as comforting. He _could_ be a good lover, he thought with the last part of his brain that wasn’t dissolving in the rush of pleasure. It was okay, he could be good for Draco, he didn’t need to worry about being alone for the last five years hurting Dr—

His mind _slammed_ shut, and he could feel himself coming, and he was yowling or doing something that sounded like it, and Draco pulled back with a look so satisfied that Harry couldn’t get angry about the way that he then wiped his hand on the towel that Harry had been wearing.

“You get to use the Cleaning Charms,” Harry muttered, struggling to keep his eyes from slipping shut.

“I don’t think I should have to,” Draco answered, and eased forwards, his hands already busy with his robes. His cock was so straight and hard that Harry reached out to touch it before he thought about it. Draco hissed and said, “Your mouth, please.”

He said it as if he thought Harry might refuse. Harry smiled at him and moved himself around on the bed so he stood a chance of sucking Draco off without getting choked. Then he took the whole thing in his mouth at once and had the satisfaction of seeing Draco lurch forwards, his eyes wide.

“Like this?” Harry muttered, but his words were just reduced to a floppy vibration because he didn’t dare speak in the normal way in case his teeth scraped something vital. Draco, who was _not_ floppy, moaned anyway.

Harry hollowed his cheeks and relaxed his jaw and licked. Draco immediately began bucking and straining forwards. Even though Harry had to crane his neck to keep from getting gagged, he felt the urge to chuckle.

Then he decided he didn’t need to hold that back, and he _did_ chuckle, and Draco made a sharp noise and came.

Harry hastily gulped and swallowed, determined to prove that _he_ wouldn’t need a Cleaning Charm, although he cheated by turning and rubbing his cheek on the towel for a second while Draco had his eyes closed. Then Draco toppled slowly down like a falling leaf, and Harry wrapped himself around Draco and sighed. _No need to go through such subterfuge after all._

“Thank you,” Draco said.

“Well, thank _you_ ,” Harry said, and was glad Draco simply gave him an exhausted smile and went to sleep instead of staying up arguing whether they needed to give each other more thank you’s or not.

It was the kind of thing Harry had once spent nights worrying about. If he ever did get a lover, how he could act normally? He didn’t know the things everyone else knew and took for granted. He couldn’t say the simplest thing without revealing that to someone else.

And now it was all going to be all right, because Draco let him keep it casual and sweet.

Harry sighed and abandoned himself to sleep and the feeling of being wrapped in someone else’s arms.

*

“It’s up to you to decide what to do,” Draco said, speaking through his teeth. It might sound incoherent, but it was better than leaping up and yelling the way he wanted to. “Meet her or not. But if she brings the rest of them with her, then I’m not coming anywhere near Dahlia.”

“I would never ask you to.”

Draco paused and sat back a little. He’d been blindsided by Harry’s response to James’s letter, but it seemed that Harry wouldn’t give all his former family the same chance. He had a distasteful frown on his face as he stared at Lily’s letter.

“What does she say?” Draco finally asked.

“That she’d like to meet me in a neutral place, the way James did,” Harry said. “She doesn’t say she’s going to apologize. She says she’ll ‘explain.’ And she wants to bring Dahlia with her. That’s non-negotiable, according to her.” He rolled his eyes and reached for a piece of parchment. “I’m going to decline.”

“I said that you could go, if you wanted.”

“Do you think _I_ want to spend any more time around Dahlia than absolutely necessary?”

“Well, no,” Draco said, feeling his words stretch out like treacle, and unable to help it. “But—well, I thought you wanted to reconnect with the Potters, and if it’s non-negotiable for her to bring Dahlia along….”

“I understand why it happened now, but I still lost my childhood to her.” Harry shook his head and kept writing, just a few scrawled words. “I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to make up with her. I don’t want to listen to apologies for her—and I’m not sure she’d give them, anyway. Maybe in a few years I’ll change my mind. But for now, no.”

“What about Lilac and Eric?”

“I’d like to see them. But not at the cost of seeing Dahlia. If it’s all of them or none of them, then it’s going to be none.”

Draco stepped up behind Harry and kissed the back of his neck. “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“Well, it’s been a few hours.” Harry grinned up at him, and then snapped out something short in Parseltongue as M.H. tried to creep up on the owl that had delivered Lily Potter’s letter.

“Then let’s get to remedying that,” Draco breathed, sliding a hand around the back of Harry’s neck, “the moment your letter is on the way.”

*

_Dahlia was a child…she didn’t do it on purpose…you have to understand and give her another chance…_

Harry read only bits and pieces of his former mother’s letter as he sat up in bed. Draco had left to go discuss “bonding plans” with his parents earlier that morning. Harry didn’t have to go with him. He trusted Draco not to make decisions that were truly repugnant for the both of them.

_Why can’t I eat the owls?_

“For the same reason I wouldn’t let you eat the dogs and cats that people had in Diagon Alley. They perform a service for us. They aren’t wild. I wouldn’t let you eat the snakes and lizards I used to cure, either,” Harry answered, and turned the letter over. He could write his response on the back. It was going to be a short letter.

_You would not let me eat the snakes and lizards because they are kin to me. Owls are not kin to me._

Harry had forgotten he’d used that particular response, actually. But he had a new one now. “Actually, they are. I’ve read books about it. Owls evolved from dinosaurs long ago.” “Dinosaurs” came out in Parseltongue as “dead two-legged lizards,” but that wasn’t really a problem. M.H. could still understand.

M.H. thought about that for a while, lurking under the perch. At least this owl was paying more attention and seemed ready to fly if it needed to. _But the relation is distant?_

“Not distant enough for you to eat owls if they’re serving humans.”

 _I will find a wild owl,_ M.H. decided, and slithered out of the room.

Harry snorted. It had taken him a while to choose the words he wanted to use, but he had them now. He wrote them rapidly onto the back of the letter, thinking all the while about the childhood he’d never had.

_I’m not going to forgive Dahlia, and neither is Draco. I’d like to get to know Eric and Lilac, and maybe you. But Dahlia has to stay home. If I show up and she’s there, then I’ll just leave and burn all your letters from now on._

There couldn’t be any way she could possibly misconstrue that, Harry decided as he held up the letter, and the owl adroitly swooped across the room, snatched it up, and fled out the window.

Then again, there shouldn’t have been any way that his parents would have believed Dumbledore when he said Voldemort was still alive and controlling Harry. All Harry could really do was hope for the best.

*

“Harry. Hello.”

Lily Potter’s voice was low and tremulous. Draco decided he liked the sound of it a lot more than when she’d been shouting at the man she’d been stupid enough to lose as her son.

“Hello, Mrs. Potter.” Harry’s greeting was distant and formal. He was paying a lot more attention to the two children with her, Draco realized. They were once again in Diagon Alley, but this time in a narrow space between two shops that only a few people knew about, and used only as an Apparition point.

Draco took the time to look them over himself. He supposed that Lilac looked acceptable. Too-wide eyes and clasped hands, but then she would have been—four years old, perhaps, when Harry was exiled. It made sense that she didn’t know how to react now.

Eric came a step forwards and stared at Harry. “You used to be our brother, but you aren’t now,” he said. “How does that _work_?”

Lily caught her breath, but if she thought Harry would explode in insults against his former family, Draco’s opinion of her intelligence would have to sink even more. Harry only smiled at Eric and said, “A magical ritual that means I’m not a Potter anymore. It’s all right. My last name is Black now. But you can still call me Harry.”

“Oh. Can you be my brother anyway?”

Harry chuckled and ruffled Eric’s hair. “I can be if you want me to and your parents agree.” He looked up and straight at Lily. Draco looked, too, and saw that her eyes were closed as if in pain.

“I don’t understand one thing,” Lilac said, her voice hesitant. “You said that Dahlia used her magic on everyone to make us think she was the perfect daughter. But I don’t think she ever used it on _me_. I’ve argued with her plenty of times.”

Harry gazed at her with a yearning expression. Draco thought that even he didn’t realize how yearning. This was the one sister he could have, now that Dahlia was permanently out of the picture. “I don’t think she concentrated as much on you. You didn’t really know me, and you’re a sibling, not a parent. You could argue with her and fight with her. It didn’t matter as much because you didn’t supposedly have Dark magic, and you weren’t competition for—your parents’ attention.”

“Harry,” Lily breathed. “I am so sorry.”

“That’s nice to know,” Harry said, in a quiet, neutral voice. Lilac was nodding, her hazel eyes intense. “I think that maybe we can reconcile someday. But not if you insist on bringing Dahlia along.”

“Why would you do _that_?” Lilac stared at her mother.

“When are you coming to visit?” Eric demanded, obviously less concerned about all the adult undercurrents swirling around him. _If he can even sense them,_ Draco thought. He would have at that age, but he’d also been an only child whose parents doted on him and taught him to pay attention to all the subtleties of politics.

“I think _you_ should come visit _me_ ,” Harry said, and cast a spell that flicked Eric on the nose. Lily looked briefly horrified. Draco controlled the impulse to tell her that Harry had learned it first to make M.H. pay attention. “I have two houses, you know? One where I’m living with Draco, and one that’s a Black house where I live with Sirius. So that way, we can have a lot more room and different places to play.”

“Oh.” Eric blinked, and then Lilac interrupted.

“Mother. I’m still waiting for an answer. About Dahlia.”

“I never intended this to happen,” Lily said, and sighed a little. “I thought that we were doing the right thing. Remembering the last ten years is like remembering a dream.” She looked straight at Harry. “I’m sorry for what we did. But Dahlia is part of the family, too. We can’t just abandon her.”

“You can keep her home for something like _this_!” Lilac snapped.

“Of course she’s part of the family,” Harry said at the same time. “And I’m not.”

There was a long moment of immense confusion when it seemed as though everyone was trying to understand both of them. Draco simply looped his arms around Harry’s waist and waited. He would be right here if Harry needed him, and if someone insulted Harry, he would make sure they got insulted back. Otherwise, Harry had asked that he not interfere.

“What does that mean?” Lily asked, her face white. “I mean—why meet with us at all if you don’t want to be part of the family?”

“I can’t be part of the family ever again,” Harry said, and inclined his head a little. “Because I’m not a Potter. I still want to know the people who would have been my siblings. Maybe my parents.”

“But Dahlia—”

“I have no interest in connecting with her.”

Standing behind Harry as he was, Draco couldn’t see his eyes, but he didn’t have to. The way Lily Potter made a choking noise and covered her face with her hands told him all about what was in Harry’s eyes.

“And you _shouldn’t_ have to!” Lilac took a step forwards. “You probably don’t know this, but I’m studying to be a Healer—”

“We _all_ know that,” Eric muttered. Harry winked at him, and he cheered up a little.

Lilac paid no attention to that, but plowed ahead, which Draco supposed was probably part of having a little brother. “And it would be horrible Mind-Healer etiquette to try to force you back together with someone who wronged you! The way the memories would mix with your magic—it’s horrible!” She threw a burning glance at her mother, and then focused on Harry again. “You don’t have to see Dahlia ever again.”

“Thank you,” Harry said gravely. Draco hugged him. He could almost feel the confusion dancing in Harry: shock, amusement, and yet gratitude that a thirteen-year-old was standing up for him.

“I know why Mother wants you to forgive and forget,” Lilac went on. “Dahlia didn’t _mean_ to. Okay. But she still _did_. And if you don’t want to forgive that, you shouldn’t _have_ to. That’s not what _The Book of Mind-Healing for Beginners of All Levels_ says, and I trust that book.” She paused, and her voice became a little more uncertain. “I can send you my copy.”

Harry huffed a little breath. “That’s kind of you, Lilac, but I don’t want to take your book. I can find it in a shop and buy it.”

“Okay.” Lilac stood taller. She hesitated one more time, and then added, “Maybe you can come and take us on visits sometime.”

“Not right now?” Eric sounded wistful.

Lilac glanced over her shoulder, and said quietly, “Mum needs a Healer right now.” She added to Harry, “I hope you understand. I think she was stupid to suggest Dahlia coming along today, but Healers go where they’re needed.”

“Of course they do,” Harry said, faintly dazed. Draco is feeling a bit of that himself. He knew Lilac Potter was intent on becoming a Healer. He hadn’t realized she already thought and acted like one.

“When can we come _see_ you?” Eric whined.

“We’ll talk about that in a while,” Harry said. Lily _was_ white, and put a hand on Lilac’s shoulder without taking her eyes off Harry. “For right now, go with your mum. I’m glad that we got a chance to talk.”

Eric pouted at him, but he hugged Harry, looked sideways at Draco, and then went to Lily for her to Apparate them away. Lily extended her hand once.

“Harry—”

“Not today,” Harry said calmly, and stood there, unmoving, until Lily bowed her head and Apparated.

“You were magnificent,” Draco said into his ear. Harry just nodded without looking away from where the Potters had been.

“Yeah.” He hesitated. “They’re good kids, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Draco turned and kissed him behind the ear. “And you don’t have to have anything to do with their parents or their older sister if you don’t want to.”

“I know that.” Harry sounded surprised, pulling back to stare into Draco’s eyes. “I was just happy to realize there are some Potters I really _want_ to get to know.”

Draco smiled and kissed him, before taking them home. More joy had come out of this meeting than he foresaw.


	26. The Unspeakables' Test

“Sirius, you _could_ stop glaring at everyone.”

“I could,” Sirius agreed as he walked with Harry through the entrance of the Department of Mysteries and stared at two Unspeakables in a way that made them reach up to check that their hoods were fully covering their faces. “But I don’t want to.”

Harry rolled his eyes and got slightly in front of Sirius as they headed towards the arched black doorway they’d been told to expect. “You’re as bad as Draco.”

“He would be glaring, too, if he’d walked in with us.”

Harry shook his head. Draco had insisted on going earlier, to question the Unspeakables who would be conducting the test on Harry’s magical core and ensuring that, in his words, “everything is all right.” Harry smiled as the grey door in front of them swung open and revealed Draco lounging against the wall of the bare steel room on the other side.

“Draco,” he said, and heard Sirius chuckle, either at the scowl on Draco’s face that he’d predicted or the way that that scowl melted when he saw Harry. Harry walked up to him and kissed him hard enough that his own lips tingled. Draco put his arms around him and pulled him in, continuing the kiss long past the point where small spots of color and blackness began to dance in front of Harry’s vision.

But he understood when Draco let him sag back and Harry turned to face the three Unspeakables who stood in front of them with grey robes. Draco was glaring over his shoulder, Sirius stood glaring next to him, and they presented a united front.

_Or as united as we can be when I look dazed from the kiss. I hope._

“You swore the vow to inform Harry of the results, and stay honest and neutral, and only inform Dumbledore of the results when Harry tells you that you can,” Draco said, his voice hissing and scraping like scales along the walls. “If you break that vow—”

“We will die,” said the tall Unspeakable on the far right, whose voice had a strange echo. Harry thought for a moment of mechanical voiceboxes he had heard a few times.

“It’s Unbreakable,” Draco said, with a small nod. “But you will suffer if you find a loophole and don’t die.”

He said nothing about how, which might be a wise choice, and made the two shorter Unspeakables shuffle. The tall one showed no such uneasiness. He turned to Harry and inclined his head. “Mr.—Black, are you ready for the test?”

Harry turned to study the other things in the room for the first time. There was a large metal triangle inlaid into the floor; he didn’t know enough about such things to say for sure, but he thought it might be silver blended with steel. In the middle of it was a star-shape, its five points reaching out to touch various places on the sides of the triangle. There was something hovering above that, but it only looked like silver mist no matter how hard Harry squinted.

“The field is where I’ll stand?” Harry asked. He could only guess, because there was little information available about this test outside the Department of Mysteries.

“Yes.” Even as the tall Unspeakable spoke, the field snapped into being. It looked like a transparent silver cylinder with a door open in the side of it. “You will walk into this, and the test will produce an image of your magical core that shows up on every side of the triangle. The star contains and channels the energies of the test.”

Harry glanced at Draco. He nodded, his lips pulled in. He still wasn’t happy about this test, but he was telling Harry the magical theory made sense.

Harry faced Sirius in turn. Sirius gave a short nod, too.

Then there were no more excuses. Not that Harry really wanted to make any. He had some hope that this test would spare him from Dumbledore’s suspicions in the future. He nodded at the Unspeakables and moved forwards.

The triangle’s metal sparked beneath his feet, but Draco had told him that would happen and he didn’t have to worry about it. The star hummed as he crossed it, although Harry didn’t have to step on its thin metal outlines the way he’d had to with the triangle. Then Harry was staring into the center of the cylinder.

Other than a faint mistiness shimmering there, similar to what it had looked like before fully forming, there was no difference between the air outside the cylinder and the air inside it.

Harry swallowed back uneasiness and a dozen other emotions that would only make Draco and Sirius feel worse, and stepped in.

*

Draco clenched one hand into a fist, not caring if the Unspeakables caught a glimpse of the scowl on his face. He was watching Harry walk away from him yet _again_ , the way he’d watched him walk through the door that led to the Black Heirship test. He was getting tired of this.

He would have Harry permanently at his side soon enough, and he didn’t want to ruin his parents’ careful plans, when they were still struggling so hard to accustom themselves to the consort Draco had chosen. But he was thinking of asking them to speed up the bonding nonetheless.

For a moment, the opening into the cylinder remained torn behind Harry. Then the door snapped to, and the mist that had filled the center of the field before swirled up around Harry. Draco squinted to make sure he could still see him.

Harry stood there as if nothing concerned him. Draco scanned him slowly, memorizing the sheen of his eyes and his bonding bracelet.

He would know in an instant if something started going wrong.

“If you would lift your hands above your head, Mr. Black,” the hollow voice of the tall Unspeakable said, seeming to boom from the walls. “And hold them there while the magic reaches out to you.”

_I should be in there with him, to make sure nothing can happen._

Black cleared his throat behind Draco. Draco gave a sharp nod without taking his eyes off Harry. He knew he couldn’t. He knew he would have to stay here. He knew it had been Harry’s decision to go through with this test, to try and make Dumbledore’s accusations evaporate.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

*

It felt as though a gigantic invisible spoon had descended and begun to scoop out the center of his chest.

Harry valiantly bit his lip, and managed to get through most of that without giggling. But a laugh did break from his lips as the spoon lifted and began to retract, still invisible.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Black?”

It was still odd to hear himself referred to by his new last name, but Harry tamped down the giggles and shook his head. He didn’t say anything, not sure whether it would disrupt the test, if that was over now or not.

A soft pearly-golden glow began to shine overhead. Looking up between his splayed arms, Harry could see that it was shaped like an open, hollow-centered ring. It was floating down towards him. Harry licked his lips.

He wasn’t sure what would happen when the ring touched him, but he had given his word, and he wouldn’t go back now. He extended a hand up towards the ring.

No one yelled at him from beyond the cylinder, the star, and the triangle. Harry reckoned that moving right now must not be important.

The ring slid down around his arm first, but kept going, descending until Harry was encased in it. It felt like nothing in particular. Harry smelled a hint of iron to it, but he kept his eyes locked on the ring, and saw nothing that indicated it was actually _made_ of iron. Or that it would turn to that and crush him.

The ring eventually slid through the floor, around his feet, and then an enormous flash of light struck the room. Blinking, Harry turned to look up at the walls.

The image of his magical core was being projected there, the way the tall Unspeakable had said it would be.

The image came to life slowly enough that Harry wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. When he _did_ understand, he blinked in surprise. The pearly-gold glow of the ring was preserved there. Harry had thought his core would look Darker than that.

But eventually he managed to make out other colors showing through the white and gold. There was a swirling, dancing cloud of green and purple, shot through with dark blue. The white and gold drifted around the edge of that storm as gentler clouds. Now and then Harry thought he saw one of them reach out a tendril of what could be called lightning and run it through the maelstrom.

“What does that mean?” Harry asked, glad that his voice wasn’t shaking. “What do the different colors symbolize?”

“The green and purple show that you would be skilled in certain sorts of magic, if you wanted to practice them,” said the tall Unspeakable. The two shorter ones with him had backed off as if they wanted to see the image of his core better. “The Dark Arts is the green—named for its resemblance to the Killing Curse—and the purple is human-to-animal Transfiguration, specifically. The blue is a sign of a lesser talent at elemental air manipulation. It would take more time and practice to bring that magic to the surface.”

“Oh,” Harry said, a little dazed. He didn’t have to look at Draco and Sirius to know they were almost bursting with pride. He could _feel_ it from their direction.

“The colors around the outside of your core represent your self-control,” said the Unspeakable. He held up his wand and traced a circle in the air, and a small ring of bright red appeared around the gold and pearl clouds on the walls. “The gold says that you temper your magic with compassion. The pearl with thoughtfulness.”

Harry had to grin. He couldn’t imagine a result that would show up Dumbledore much better. “What about the lightning they keep reaching out to the clouds with?”

“That’s not lightning, Mr. Potter,” said one of the shorter Unspeakables, sounding shocked. Draco turned to stare at them, and so did Harry, and the Unspeakable cleared his or her throat and said weakly, “Mr. Black, I mean. That’s a sign of how your good qualities are reaching out to the Dark magic.”

Harry opened his mouth to comment on their judgment, but the tall Unspeakable said, “ _Yeliana._ We do not call such things good by their nature. We talk of them by their color, their identity, and their place in the circle.”

Yeliana dropped their head and stared somewhere in the direction of the floor. Harry looked at the tall Unspeakable, who nodded sharply and said, “I apologize for the ignorance of my colleague, Mr. Black. But those are not flickers of lightning. They do touch your magical core, but their purpose is to temper it, as I said before.”

“What happens to someone who doesn’t have qualities like that tempering their core?”

“They probably would not have survived to adulthood, of course. Any magic must have some kind of restraint—Light or Dark, minor talent or greater—or it will simply explode through the child’s skin and kill them.”

Harry blinked. He had never heard of that. He supposed there were some dangers that being a Squib could save you from.

 _But_ , he had to admit to himself as he turned to step out of the triangle and saw the way Draco’s face glowed and Sirius’s was lit up by his grin, _I do prefer being a powerful wizard._

*

Draco embraced Harry and lowered his head until he could breathe the words directly into his ear. “How does it feel to know that you’re special enough to impress an Unspeakable?”

“He was impressed? I couldn’t tell.”

Black slapped Harry on the back and laughed that ringing laugh that made Draco twitch, most of the time, because of the number of people who would turn around and _look_. Luckily, there was no one except them and the Unspeakables who had conducted the test here. “Of course he was! They can talk about it using neutral words all they want, but I can tell approval when they hear it.”

“What do you want to tell Dumbledore?” Draco demanded, moving on to the more important things. “And when?”

Harry tilted his head to look at the picture on the wall from several angles. Draco did the same thing. This was his _consort’s_ magical core. Of course he was going to take the opportunity to look. It wasn’t as if it went on display all the time.

“Is there a way that you can keep this image on the walls and explain it to Dumbledore?” Harry abruptly asked the tall Unspeakable.

“Yes. Do you wish to be present?”

Harry nodded. “Summon him now. We can wait.” He leaned loosely back against Draco and grinned a little.

“What’s going on?” Draco whispered to him as he stroked the nape of Harry’s neck. He didn’t _object_ if Harry wanted to show this to Dumbledore, since he wouldn’t be in any danger, but— “I thought you never wanted to see him again.”

“I don’t want him to threaten _you_ again. That’s not the same thing as objecting to watching his jaw drop.”

Draco snorted and pulled Harry away from the metal triangle. It looked inert right now, but Merlin knew what an Unspeakable artifact would do if someone accidentally touched it. “I think he’s a greater threat to you than me.”

“Who was nearly raped of their free will by my _darling_ sister?”

“I threw it off, though.”

“And I’m not going to take any more chances with you than you are with me.”

Draco blinked, then shrugged. If that was the way Harry wanted it to be—it didn’t displease Draco.

Harry grinned and, when neither Black nor the Unspeakables were looking, nudged his hips back in a way that made it obvious he had noticed the state of Draco’s non-displeasure.

Draco bit his lip and held firmly still as he listened to the Floo call from the other room. When they got back home, unless Black or Harry wanted to plan revenge on Dumbledore right away, then he was going to spend a lot of time with Harry. Privately. Behind a locked door.

When the tall Unspeakable came back through the door, Dumbledore was following him. He looked at Harry for only a moment, seeming to use his eyes to edit Draco out of reality, and then turned and stared at the gleaming image on the walls. He locked his hands behind his back and stood gazing.

Enough time passed that Draco shifted restlessly, not happy about leaving this confrontation solely up to Harry. Harry seemed to sense that, and spoke. “Do you need someone to explain the colors to you, Mr. Dumbledore?” he asked solicitously.

If Draco hadn’t been watching for it, he never would have seen the slight tremble that ran up Dumbledore’s spine. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “No, I think I understand them, Mr. Black,” he said. “Even if it’s a long time since I attended to this part of my education.”

 _There._ His voice had a tremble at the end, too.

Dumbledore went on staring at the wall. Draco scoffed. _He’s so much of a coward, he can’t face us and admit he was wrong._ “Do you see any trace of evil, self-willed magic there, Dumbledore?” he asked.

The old man’s shoulders rose and fell. Then he turned around. “No,” he whispered.

 _Oh, very good,_ Draco thought, and knew he would have to put this memory in a Pensieve so he could watch it from several different angles. Dumbledore was trying to play this off with an air of calm wisdom, but he couldn’t. There were lines along the corners of his mouth that looked brand-new, and as Draco watched, he raised one hand slowly so that it covered his face.

 _Devastated._ Yes, that was a good word.

Amazingly, Black managed to stay quiet and out of it, so that Harry could speak. “So you were wrong. So you sent me into exile for ten years based on your own mistake. So you were so paranoid about Voldemort coming back that you messed up my _entire_ life.” He hesitated, and Draco wondered what accusation could be so terrible that Harry would be afraid to say it. Then he added, “And messed up my relationship with my parents and my sister.”

_He doesn’t really care about that—_

No, he didn’t, Draco realized a moment later, as Harry reached back and squeezed his hand, hard. But _Dumbledore_ did. Harry had realized what a whip to the man’s heart that would be.

 _My consort,_ Draco thought, squeezing Harry’s hand back, _is perfect._

“I am so, so sorry,” Dumbledore whispered. He sounded stricken with remorse.

“You can’t hope for forgiveness. Not when you were the major architect of the whole thing.”

Dumbledore turned slowly away, without answering, and went to lean on the wall beneath the shining image of Harry’s magical core, staring up at it. Again he covered his face with one hand a moment later. He was shaking now, fine tremors that spread throughout his being.

 _He_ knows _Harry will never forgive him. Really feels it._

And Draco knew that was as it should be. Harry might choose to spend time with his younger siblings, might choose to associate with the elder Potters if he could stand them, but he barely knew Dumbledore and had no reason to think fondly of him. There would be no pardon, ever.

 _Maybe,_ Draco thought, as Black put a finger to his lips and tiptoed with exaggerated smoothness out of the room, _living with that knowledge is the worst punishment Dumbledore could receive._


	27. Replies and No Replies

Harry rolled his eyes and tossed the letter that had just arrived from Lily into the fire. They’d exchanged a few notes, where she apologized and talked about her desire to fit in with the pure-bloods and how that had taken her too far, and he talked about his life in New York. But in this one, she’d written about how Dahlia was crying in her bedroom all day, and Harry didn’t want to hear it.

Draco smiled at him as the letter burst into flames, and didn’t bother asking what it was about. “You want to meet with my mother today?”

“If you think it’ll be productive,” Harry said. Draco wanted Harry involved in planning the bonding, but Narcissa kept mentioning things Harry knew nothing about. And he couldn’t make decisions if he didn’t know what half her words referred to. “Wouldn’t your parents be happier planning it themselves?”

Draco leaned lightly across the table to touch his hand. “Yes, they would, but they’re not the ones getting bonded. We are.”

Harry nodded. “I just don’t know enough about the formal ceremonies to know what all the colors symbolize, or why your mum wants me to care about the blankets that are going to go on the bed on the bonding night.”

Draco watched him thoughtfully. “After so long being exiled from your rightful word, I thought you would _want_ to know all those things.”

Harry coughed, knowing how badly he was blushing from how his skin prickled. “I mean—I do. But some of those things are _never_ going to matter. They wouldn’t matter if we were talking about our children’s bondings, either.”

Draco’s eyes glazed over a little, the way they always did when Harry talked about children. Then he nodded. “All right. Why don’t you pick out the things that matter to you and just tell her that she can take care of everything else? She’ll like being in charge of part of it, and we can discuss the others.”

“I’d be happy to do that, except I don’t know what those decisions are until they come _up_ , and then she looks at me like I’m an idiot.”

“That’s easily solved,” Sirius said, popping his head through the door of the kitchen. They were at Grimmauld Place, which was the easiest place to receive visits and owls from Draco’s parents. “Here you go, kiddo.” He heaved a book at Harry’s head.

Harry caught it before it hit him, and turned it around to look at the cover in complete bewilderment. It had the Black family coat of arms on it, and it said in silver lettering underneath that, _Marriages and Bondings._ Harry opened it wondering if the Black traditions were any less dense than the Malfoy traditions.

But it wasn’t just chapters about traditions. Instead, the first four pages were occupied with a list of topics. _The decisions to be made that Narcissa keeps asking me about,_ Harry realized with a sense of relief. It would be easy from this to decide what he wanted to have a say in and what he could leave up to her.

“Thanks, Sirius!” he called, but only received a grunt from the other room.

“That will work—surprisingly well, actually,” Draco said, his eyebrows rising. “After all, Mother is also a Black who married a Malfoy. She’ll be happy to follow any suggestions the book has that you want to use, and she’s not going to mind that you’re using it.”

“Good.” Harry sighed and looked up at him. “But don’t _you_ want to be part of these discussions? What if we make a decision you don’t like?”

Draco snorted. “I share most of my mother’s opinions, and they had me sit down years ago and decide on the few that are essential for the spouse taking a consort to make.”

“Oh.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “You’re not upset about that, are you?”

“Just—surprised. I mean, Dahlia would have been your wife, not your consort.”

Draco laughed at that. “You don’t know my parents. The betrothal contract wasn’t that specific, which is why they were able to change it so easily to say it would be her instead of you. In case there was any change at all in Dahlia’s status, they wanted to be ready.”

Harry smiled. That did sound like the Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy he was coming to know. “Good. I just—don’t want you to be less invested in this than I am.”

Draco stood up and moved around the table, then bent down to kiss him. He didn’t even touch Harry on the shoulders or anything else. But Harry could feel the restrained heat trembling behind Draco’s lips.

“I can’t wait to show you how invested I am,” Draco whispered.

Harry went to his next meeting with Narcissa clutching the book Sirius had given him and with his head spinning, in a good way.

*

The letter took Draco utterly by surprise. M.H. was next to him and started stalking the owl, and Draco had to go rescue the bird, but by then he recognized the Potter owls, and he thought it would surely be for Harry or Black. James Potter seemed to think he could reconcile with Black, and Black sometimes seemed to want that and sometimes seemed to let Potter send letters for his own sadistic amusement.

But no, this one was addressed to him. And from the way the owl settled on a high bookshelf and alternated glaring at him and M.H., a reply was expected.

Draco frowned as he opened the letter. Did they think that he would persuade Harry around to the reconciliation with all of them that Lily wanted? They understood him less than they did Harry, if so.

But the letter wasn’t from Lily or James. It was from Dahlia.

_Dear Draco, I’m so sorry about what I did with my magic. I know that doesn’t make up for it, but I’m sorry. And I know that you probably never wanted to hear from me again, but I wanted to say that. So this is my apology. I hope that you’ll write back. Dahlia Potter._

Draco blinked and read it over, shaking his head. It read a lot like a child’s letter, he thought. And he supposed it was a good thing that Dahlia had realized what she did wrong, but…

It was too late. And he couldn’t even be sure if she had written this letter on her own, or because one of her parents had urged her. And her desire for communication with him when he had nearly become another victim of her magic was…

No. It wouldn’t work.

Draco tossed the letter at M.H., who regarded it suspiciously so that it landed on the floor. Then he looked up at the Potter owl. “No response,” he said coolly.

The owl hooted at him in agitation. Draco just stood and watched it. The owl took a flight around the room and landed on the back of the nearest chair as if it planned to sit there until it could convince him to write back, but when M.H. slid a few centimeters forwards, it soared out the window.

Draco gathered up the letter and tucked it away. He would keep it and let Harry see it later. Although he would hate it if Harry wanted to talk to Dahlia, it was his decision, not Draco’s, and he deserved to know what she had said.

But there was nothing in the world that could convince Draco that _he_ ought to.

*

“This will do very well, Mr. Black, very well,” said Narcissa absently as she flicked through the pages of the Black book. “Yes, I remember that tradition.” She smiled at something on one page and turned it around so that he could see it. “What do you think? Not appropriate for weddings, of course, but for a bonding where you’ll take the Malfoy name and yet have one of your children as the Black heir.”

Harry blinked at the illustration. He had seen moving wizarding pictures by now, but not usually in books, and not in such rich color. There was a blue banner depicted with the Black family crest on it, and then it swung aside to reveal another one, paler, with different family heraldry on it. The banners draped lightly across each other, with the other one on top but the words _Toujours pur_ peeking out from beneath. Harry had to restrain himself from making a face at it. He enjoyed being a member of the Black family, but that motto was a mockery of what he’d been born.

“I don’t understand the context. Are the banners decorations?”

“Yes, they are,” Narcissa said. “To be placed above the entrance to the bonding grove. Wind charms will mimic the behavior of the banners in the picture.” She smiled. “What do you think? Of course the banner with the Malfoy family crest will replace the generic one here.”

“Yes, Mrs. Malfoy, it’s fine.”

Narcissa laid the book aside with a soft snap. They were sitting in a room in Malfoy Manor that Harry thought was probably just meant for receiving visitors. Everything in it was black, accented with white: the chairs, the low table in between them scattered with books and fabric samples and carvings and fresh flowers, the bookshelves, the mantel and the fireplace. The sunlight beaming through the room looked like an intruder by contrast.

“You sound as if you aren’t interested in your own bonding, Mr. Black.”

“I’m not equally interested in all aspects of it,” Harry said, and made his gaze cool and his voice challenging, the way Draco said would work best with his mother. “I don’t mind letting you plan anything you want to _really_ plan.”

Narcissa folded her hands. “But so far, the only _strong_ opinion you have given is the hope that your bonding robes will be ‘non-itchy.’ Hardly an expression of interest.”

“It _is_ very important that my bonding robes not itch! Do you want me scratching my arse in the middle of the ceremony?”

“ _Mr. Black._ I want you to do honor to your adopted family name, which is incidentally _my_ birth family, and to the family you are marrying into, which is _also_ mine.”

Harry held her gaze and said quietly, “Look. I’m not a pure-blood and I won’t ever be. Even if my blood status didn’t bother you, I was raised outside the wizarding world, for the most part. I can’t be the perfect son-in-law you want me to be in time for the bonding.”

“If you showed interest in learning—”

“I can learn _after_ the bonding. But not everything I need to know in time for it. I’ll only look stupid if I try. Stupider,” Harry added, after some consideration about the way he looked now.

Narcissa paused. Then she said, “You need not worry that Draco will refuse to bond with you. I know how my son looks when he’s in love.”

“Who was he in love with before me?” Harry asked. Then he clamped his mouth shut, because now he sounded not only stupid, but _also_ jealous.

“That is not what I meant,” Narcissa murmured, examining him intently. “I know how he looks when he’s in love because this is how he’s looked in the last few weeks, being with you.”

Harry felt a sharp smile break out on his face. “All right,” he said. “Then why don’t we do what we discussed? I’ll look through that book’s table of contents and only pick out the most important things, the things I absolutely want to have some input on. The other things, you can do what you want with.”

Narcissa twitched a little at the word “input,” probably because it was too Muggle for her, but then she inclined her head. “Very well. I will let you have the book then.” She handed it back across the table.

Harry studied the first four pages carefully. Decorations, seating arrangements, dances, most of the food…no, he didn’t care about that. In the end, only the robes—and really, just the cloth they were made out of—the magic they would use for the actual bonding, and how many formal words he would be required to speak were the things that mattered to him.

“These,” he said, and wrote them down on one of the pieces of parchment Narcissa had waiting. When he looked up, though, he found her eyes were fastened on him, and not on the list.

“What?” Harry added, a little defensive.

“I wondered why you were agreeing to undergo the process of preparing for a formal bonding when you seem to care so little about it,” Narcissa murmured. “Now I understand. You love my son.”

Harry smiled. This should have been the hardest thing to talk about, harder than his ignorance of wizarding customs, but it wasn’t. “Yes. I would do anything for him.”

“Even though you have only known him for a few weeks.”

Harry took a deep breath. This wasn’t hard to talk about, really, but he wouldn’t have revealed such secrets to just anyone. “I spent most of my life exiled, Mrs. Malfoy, even before I left England. I just kept seeing all these things I could never have. Magic, and the love of a family, and, I thought, any kind of marriage or bonding. They told me that my evil magic would kill anyone if I lost control.” He decided against saying that meant sex was out. Narcissa was smart enough to figure that out on her own. “And then I was _really_ alone for the last few years, after my mentor, who was a Squib, died. Then Draco came and told me that I was special, and he was interested in me, and wanted to see—what could happen. Can you _imagine_ how I feel about him?”

“Relationships based on gratitude alone are not strong.”

Harry snorted. “It’s not gratitude. It’s _wonder_. And affection. Because he taught me to see myself. And to see that some of the things I believed were lies. It was painful. Not the same thing as just being glad he was there. Draco was the one who had the strength to tell me I was _wrong_ , and then make me face up to that. Sure, I’m happy for the way things worked out. But I admire Draco’s strength, too. That he didn’t run when it got hard. He stayed. If it was just that he wanted to fulfill a betrothal contract, he would have given up when he realized how hard it was going to be.”

Narcissa blinked. “Admiration is not—”

“The glue that holds bonds together, either, I get it,” Harry said impatiently. “But I’m _trying_ to explain, okay? But I like the way he laughs. I like his sense of humor. I like the way he tried to make _me_ laugh. And he was attracted to me, and yeah, that was—” _Full of things I don’t want to discuss with Draco’s mother._ “That was attractive to _me_. He was challenging and brave and focused on _me_. He was different from anyone I’ve ever met. He’s _still_ different from anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Even though my cousin has adopted you. And Lucius and I have consented to support your bonding.”

“Yes, of course he is. I know you care for Draco. I know Sirius feels guilty. Draco is—unique in all that.”

“His father and I love him,” Narcissa said, with an odd emphasis in his voice. “But I think you love him in a different way.”

“I do.”

Harry faced Narcissa almost expecting her to challenge him over it. The last thing in the world he had expected was to see her smile at him. He blinked.

“I think silk would make for the least itchy formal robe,” Narcissa said calmly, and turned his list around so she could read it.

“And—that’s it? Now you’re convinced that I love Draco and really want to bond with him when you weren’t before?”

“Now I’ve had a chance to see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice.” Narcissa was making a note on another piece of parchment and frowning. “Did we have your measurements taken? I thought we had, but now I realize that was foolish. Draco was taking you to the shops when you wanted new robes, not having them made up by a tailor at home.”

Harry opened his mouth to continue the argument, and then paused. Did he _want_ to? This was going to be a formal bonding, everyone had already decided on that, including him, and he had already said that Narcissa could handle all the things that didn’t really matter to him.

He shook his head and said, “No, I haven’t had anything made up. But Sirius had his house-elves shrink some of his robes to fit me, so maybe we can get the measurements from them.”

Narcissa sniffed. “Having _met_ Sirius’s house-elves, I would not trust them to have measured a human by eye. I will have a tailor come to the house.” She smiled at him as she wrote down another note. “I am glad we had this talk, Harry.”

 _And there we are,_ Harry thought, a little dazed. _I’m accepted, just like that._

But finally, he had to shake his head. Why not? They all loved Draco, after all.

“I think we will have a cake decorated with berries—a good omen for the fruitful bonding we hope you will have…”

 _Some of just express it in different ways,_ Harry decided wryly, and sat back to listen with what patience he could.


	28. Forgiveness

“I can’t find any spells on it,” Harry said, shaking his head as he spun his wand and watched Dahlia’s letter follow the motion in the air in front of him.

Draco grimaced from his chair. “I know. I think it might really be an apology. But she’s mad if she thinks I’m going to respond to it.”

“It wouldn’t be a good thing even if you wanted to,” Harry said, and incinerated the letter with a careless incantation. He noticed Draco’s smug smile from the corner of his eye. Draco seemed to react like that every time Harry successfully demonstrated magic. “She’s still convinced she’s in love with you. It would just give her false hope.”

“Yes, yes, worry all about your ex-sister and not enough about _me_.”

“Fine.” Harry turned around and draped himself over Draco’s lap, gazing up at him soulfully. “I’m _so_ glad that you didn’t get tricked into writing back to Dahlia. I’m _so_ happy you’re with me. I’m _so_ happy that you’re going to bond with me. It’s _so_ wonderful—”

That was the point when Draco kissed him, and Harry had to shut up because he couldn’t laugh through one of Draco’s kisses. He groaned and pushed himself closer, feeling Draco’s hands raking through his hair. He had to shift himself some more so they would be perfectly aligned to feel each other—

“Not looking! Not looking!”

Harry shot up and reached for his wand before he recognized Sirius’s voice. He let out an exasperated huff of breath and dropped his cheek against Draco’s shoulder. Draco looked more than disgruntled for a minute. Then he shut his eyes and forced his emotions behind those shields that Harry thought his parents had taught him.

“Are all the sights that could scar innocent eyes taken care of now?” Sirius asked in a loud whisper, from around the corner of the library doorway.

“Yes,” Draco said, and repositioned Harry on the chair with a grunt, so that they were both sitting mostly upright. “Come in, Black.”

Sirius stepped in, grinning. “Just wanted to tell you that there’s a tailor waiting for you to take your measurements, Harry. You know, for your fancy bonding robes that are _definitely_ not going to be itchy.”

Harry groaned for a different reason this time. “I thought it was going to take a few days? And Narcissa said that he would come to Malfoy Manor. I thought I’d be fitted there.”

“Merlin knows what horrors Narcissa would convince you to dress up in, if she had you all to herself,” said Sirius briskly. “And anyway, it’s the father’s place to pay for the robes in a bonding like this. Thought I’d get to see what they looked like, too.” Sirius stepped in and placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders, staring at him as if he wasn’t sitting in Draco’s lap. For Sirius, he might not be, Harry had to acknowledge.

“God, I failed you for so many years,” Sirius whispered. “And now you’re back in the wizarding world, and you’re a Black, and you’re getting _bonded_.” He looked solemn for approximately two seconds, and then he flung his arms around Harry and howled like a dog, “My little boy is _getting bonded_!”

“Black, _off_ ,” Draco, and pushed at them both. Harry, laughing, managed to slide to the right and then stand up with Sirius’s arms still wrapped around him. Draco was scowling at both of them, probably because Sirius was taking Harry away and Harry was going along with it. “You’re ridiculous.”

“No, _you’re_ ridiculous.”

“As much as I hate to interrupt this extremely mature discussion,” Harry said, “I suppose we can’t keep the tailor waiting.”

“No,” Sirius agreed, and reached out to grasp his arm. Draco watched them go for all of five seconds before he sighed and heaved himself off the chair.

“And of course I want to make sure that my betrothed’s bonding robes look nice and fit well,” he muttered as he followed them.

Harry glanced back at him, and smiled. There was a burning look in Draco’s eyes that made it clear he would rather see what Harry looked like with his bonding robes _off_ , but he was making this incredible sacrifice for the good of everyone.

 _I like my life_ , Harry thought, and graciously permitted both Sirius and Draco to hand him over to the tailor for what seemed like it would be hours of work.

*

Draco leaned back in his chair, studying the tailor as he stepped around Harry, pinning and muttering. More pins hovered in the air above his head, ready to be grabbed, and swatches of fabric and measuring tapes and buttons and threads and needles joined the whirl just a little higher on. Black had lasted all of ten minutes before he made a few off-color comments and then marched out, calling over his shoulder to let him know when the robes were done.

Harry looked as if he was enduring this with forced patience at best, but the point was, he was _there_. He was getting ready for his bonding. He had robes of enormously expensive silken cloth sliding over his shoulders and body.

He was in the world he always should have belonged in, at long last.

Draco let his eyes run lazily up and down Harry’s shoulders, the way he stood, his folded arms, his tumbling hair. It might be Draco’s imagination rather than any trick of magic, but he already thought Harry looked more like a Black than a Potter. His hair was certainly dark enough, he had those green eyes that weren’t a trait of either family but uniquely bright and his own—

(Yes, his mother had had them. But his mother was no longer his mother. So).

—and he didn’t have the same stance or face shape or _anything_ that the rest of the Potter children did. He’d started wearing his hair longer, so it had lost James’s messiness. And his nose was a little like Black’s, wasn’t it?

Draco shook his head. He knew he was being ridiculous, as Black had accused him. All the pure-blood families were interrelated at some level, so a Black nose could also be a Potter nose and vice versa.

But the _point_ was, Harry was now a Black and going to be married as a member of that family. Draco had broken free of the contract after doing everyone he could to honor the letter of it. He had found a consort who was more powerful than any other Potter child.

“I can sense your smugness from here,” Harry muttered, and turned in yet another direction so that the tailor could pin the robes on him in another way. “Just so you know.”

Draco smiled. He had _reason_ to be smug. No one else in the whole world was going to be bonded to Harry Black.

*

_I just want to know if you can forgive your sister—_

Harry snorted and crumpled the letter into a ball, then tossed it into the air. He remembered to burn it before M.H. could get hold of it. M.H. was prone to eating anything small that moved towards him, and he wouldn’t listen to any of Harry’s reasoning about how ink and paper were bad for bushmasters.

 _Scratch me,_ M.H. demanded, and eased up alongside his chair, turning his head. Harry did, scratching hard so that the loosening skin would tear off. M.H. took forever to shed his skin, longer than a wild snake. Harry had pointed out that wild ones did this all the time, and had received the unanswerable comment that they didn’t have humans to scratch them.

_Feed me a pig._

_There aren’t any pigs around here,_ Harry hissed back in Parseltongue, and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up to see Sirius standing there and scowling. Harry raised his eyebrows in response. “Something wrong?” Draco was at Malfoy Manor enlarging the garden where they would get married—although Harry didn’t know why it _needed_ enlarging, as huge as the Manor’s grounds were—so he couldn’t have been the one to annoy Sirius.

“Your _former_ father is standing outside waiting to speak to you,” Sirius said, and rolled his eyes. “He’s said that I’m keeping you from him and he wants to establish a relationship with you.”

“He just sent me a letter urging me to forgive Dahlia. I don’t want to talk to him.”

Sirius’s eyes brightened. “Then I can make the wards kick him out with a clear conscience!” He turned and ran up the corridor, aiming not for the front door, as Harry would have thought, but for the stairs. Curious, Harry followed him. He caught up with Sirius near a small window where he was making sharp passes with his wand in the air and muttering something in what sounded like French.

James was in the garden, waving his arms and shouting. Sirius finished the last incantation, and suddenly the wards flared as lines in the air. They curled around James and lifted him up and out of the garden, over the fence, and onto the Muggle pavement. Harry laughed. He couldn’t help himself.

“ _Harry_!”

Harry turned to Sirius. “Can you conjure a Patronus and tell him that I don’t want to see him unless he’s going to talk about something other than Dahlia?” He would have liked to send one himself, but he hadn’t mastered the charm yet. Draco was giving him plenty of happy memories to practice with, of course.

“Yep.” Sirius whipped out his wand and concentrated hard, and a second later a silvery dog was prancing around the room. It flopped down in front of Harry and panted at him. Harry smiled at it.

“I don’t want to see you until you stop telling me to forgive Dahlia,” he said clearly, and the dog stood up and flashed through the wall. Harry looked out the window and saw it arrive by James’s side a second later. James stared down at it. Harry couldn’t hear what it was saying from this distance, but he knew it would deliver the message safely.

James turned and glared up. Then he drew his wand and touched it to his throat. When he spoke again, he’d obviously cast the Sonorus Charm.

“Harry, we miss you. And since the time she tried to take over Draco with her magic, Dahlia’s done nothing but weep. The Mind-Healers we’ve paid for can’t help her. They say nothing can help her but being forgiven.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s very sad that the little mind-rapist is crying,” he muttered.

Sirius looked at him consideringly. “You don’t mean that.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.” Harry sighed. He didn’t want Dahlia to be miserable for the rest of her life, but miserable for long enough that he could feel like she’d paid the penalty for trying to take Draco’s love away from him. And he noticed that neither James nor Lily had said anything about ways to make sure that she didn’t use her wandless Imperius Curse on anyone again.

James cleared his throat beyond the window. “We’re worried about her. We’re trying. It’s—hard to wake up from that kind of control and realize we have no idea who our daughter really is. And I don’t know that _she_ knows who she is, either. She doesn’t understand when we try to explain some fairly basic things to her. She doesn’t want to go back to Hogwarts in the autumn. She doesn’t want to eat or drink or do anything normal.”

Harry rolled his eyes and turned to Sirius. “Another Patronus?”

Sirius had the silvery dog conjured again in a minute. From the way he grinned and looked out the window, he was using the memory of James’s discomfort to create it, not that Harry could really blame him.

Harry cleared his throat and said, “Tell my former father that, while I feel sorry for Dahlia, I’m not going to forgive her until I see that she’s getting either training or restraint to deal with her magic. And find better Mind-Healers.”

James’s head drooped after the dog appeared beside him and repeated that. Then he turned and drooped away up the pavement.

Harry shook his head. He hoped that Dahlia _did_ heal from the problems she was having and learn to move forwards again—and restrain her magic. But he wasn’t going to spend his time forgiving her and watching over her and hoping she would do that.

He’d already given up nine years of his life to her and his parents’ fears and Dumbledore’s paranoia. That was enough.

*

“They do look very nice.”

Draco smiled, knowing that that restrained praise from his mother was worth more than pages on pages of effusiveness from someone else. From the faint smile Harry gave her as he stepped down off the small pedestal he’d stood on to show his bonding robes off, he knew it.

The robes were deep blue silk, the color of water reflecting a summer sky, and they swirled around Harry as he moved. He had a cloak draped over his shoulders with a hood; it looked like part of the robe until you saw it from the back. The cloak had the Black family crest stitched into it. Draco would remove it when Harry bonded with him and replace it with one that had the Malfoy coat of arms. But they would keep the Black hood, because at least one of their children would take Harry’s last name.

Draco didn’t care which one, as long as there were children with the Malfoy name, too.

“I have the flowers arranged,” Narcissa said, counting things off on her fingers. “The food. But the guest list…” She frowned and glanced sideways at Draco. “Your father felt that we should invite Harry’s first family.”

“No.”

Draco smiled a second later. The denial had exploded out of him and Harry at the same time. He put his arm around Harry’s shoulders and turned calmly to face his mother.

“I never intended to invite Dahlia,” Narcissa said, shaking her head a little as if she wondered how they could accuse her of such a thing. “Your father’s thought was his former parents, perhaps his younger siblings.”

“My former parents are still too invested in making Dahlia my problem,” Harry said darkly. “But—I’d like Lilac and Eric there, if they want to come. _Can_ we invite them without James and Lily?”

“Why would we not be able to?” Narcissa asked, pursing her lips. “Lilac is older than eleven, and someone who possesses her own wand is old enough to make her own decisions about attending bonding ceremonies. And she can supervise her younger brother.”

“I don’t know much about etiquette,” said Harry. Draco and Narcissa gave each other simultaneous looks over his head; it was the fiftieth or sixtieth time he’d said that since they started planning the bonding. “I had no idea about the wand thing, for instance. I don’t want to offend you when you—” He floundered.

“You have the right to ask for guests that you want,” Draco said soothingly, and rubbed Harry’s back. He didn’t think it would be any problem to include the younger Potters in the plans, as long as Lilac _did_ keep an eye on Eric. The last thing he wanted was for a child to run through the ceremony and shake the petals off the flowers and disrupt everything.

“All right, then. My brother and sister. My _real_ sister,” Harry added, and studied them both. Draco nodded reassuringly at him. Narcissa glided away, perhaps to make changes to the guest list or to let Father know his suggestion had been rejected.

“Okay.” Harry took a deep breath and then reached behind him to scratch his neck, beneath the hood of the cloak. Draco felt a smile tug at his lips. At least the tailor had made the silk strong enough that unexpected scratching wouldn’t rip it. “I sometimes think that I’m going to wake up any second and it’ll all be a dream, you know? That there’s no way I’m a wizard and getting bonded to the love of my life.”

Draco gave him a kiss for that last statement, and said, “I know what you mean. But it’s real. I have as many motives to want it to be real as you do,” he added, pulling Harry’s arm into his and starting to walk him over the darkening gardens towards the grove where they would stand for their bonding tomorrow. “Otherwise, I would find myself being married to Dahlia. Someone who would try to control me with her magic if I had found out the truth. Someone with no personality if I hadn’t.”

Harry cocked his head. “I told you all the details about James coming and asking me to forgive her.”

“Yes,” Draco said, not understanding.

“ _All_ of them. And you—you don’t think I should?”

Draco turned him around. Harry looked up at him calmly, trustingly, but with that spark of uncertainty in the back of his eyes that Draco knew would never really disappear until they had successfully bonded.

“If you wanted to,” Draco said quietly, “I would find a way to live with it. I’m never going to forgive her, but I could just leave the house when she came to visit, not accompany you on your visits, and so on. If you ever do forgive her, that’s what I’ll do.”

“But you don’t think that I’m horrible if I don’t?”

“I think you’re _sane_.”

Harry’s smile broke loose, and he leaned against Draco’s side. “Let’s go into the grove again. I’d like to see how the banners hang.”

Draco looped his arm around Harry’s shoulders, and went with him.


	29. The Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of Bonded Consort. Thank you for reading along.

“Thank you for inviting us,” Lilac said, at her most adult, so that Harry felt his lips twitch in spite of himself. She smoothed down the dress robe she wore, which was made of glittering purple cloth that matched her name. She had a small, shimmering golden leash made of transparent magic around her left wrist. It connected to Eric’s wrist.

Eric grinned at Harry. “Thanks,” he said, and then turned around to poke at the white peacock that had strutted up to him. It jumped back and clacked its beak in offense.

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you could come.” Harry paused, but pretending the issue wasn’t there wouldn’t make it go away. “I’m glad that Lily and James let you come.”

Lilac sighed and rolled her eyes. “They finally found a Mind-Healer who seems to be helping Dahlia. They’re preoccupied with that right now.” She paused, frowning a little. “I don’t think much of the Healer’s methods, personally. But if Dahlia isn’t crying all the time, then she won’t be as tiresome.”

“That’s true,” Harry said, and hid his amusement at the way that Lilac had criticized the Mind-Healer by showing his amusement at something else. He tilted his head at the golden leash around her wrist. “What’s this?”

“I told Mum that she needed to cast that spell, or I could never keep Eric with me or keep him from disrupting the ceremony.”

“And _you’re_ okay with that?” Harry asked Eric in disbelief. Eric only grinned at him and reached back to pluck the leash. It made a noise like a harpstring. Then he plucked it again, and it made a noise like a dog barking. Then came an elephant trumpeting, a hunting horn, and a snake hissing.

“I promise that we’ll be near the back,” Lilac told him, and rolled her eyes again, and started to haul Eric away. But she paused suddenly, and, before Harry could figure out what she was doing, leaned sideways and hugged him, hard, around the waist. Harry froze and blinked.

“I’m glad that you’re getting bonded to someone who loves you,” Lilac said, her face mostly buried in his robes. “I used to wonder about you all the time. I’m glad that you’re in England and safe.”

Harry gently touched her hair. “Thank you, Lilac.” After another minute, he managed to hug her back. Lilac stood up, brushed a few tears off her cheeks, and marched Eric towards the bonding grove at the back of the Malfoy Manor grounds. Harry just shook his head in wonder.

Harry watched the leash for a second, then shrugged. If it worked, who was he to question it?

“They’re good kids,” Sirius said from behind him, and Harry turned around and smiled at his—father. It was sometimes hard to get used to thinking of him that way, but Sirius had _chosen_ to be his dad, and Harry was sure that he would get more used to it in the future.

“They are. I’m happy they’re here.” Harry noticed that Sirius was holding his hands behind his back, and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What are you hiding?”

“Hiding? Nothing.” Sirius grinned at him and waved his left hand around in the air, while keeping the right one clasped in place. “See? Nothing there.” He started using his left hand to turn his pockets inside-out. “Nothing in the pockets, nothing here, nothing _there_ …”

“ _Sirius._ Narcissa is going to be angry if you do something during the ceremony.” Threatening Sirius with Narcissa’s wrath worked better than Draco’s or Lucius’s, Harry had found. He simply didn’t care about _their_ anger at all.

It didn’t work this time, though. Sirius widened his eyes and pretended to sway in place, his left hand over his heart. “Oh, no, not _Narcissa_. She’ll probably get tangled up in a banner if she tries to run at me, anyway.” He nodded at the banners that were flapping from trees, bushes, the sides of the gate, the poles of the fence, large rocks in the flowerbeds, and sometimes midair. Harry knew exactly half had the Black family crest on them and exactly half the Malfoy crest.

“Don’t ruin my bonding ceremony, please.”

Sirius was solemn in an instant, ruffling his hair and shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do that, Harry. _Son_ ,” he added, with a grin that made it clear he was still thinking about how he’d stolen a march on James. “It’s something for after the ceremony. Just to make it a little more lively.”

Pressing him would be useless, so Harry only rolled his eyes with a slight groan and said, “Just tell me that it’s not going to injure anyone.”

“Not if they don’t get in the way.”

“ _Sirius_.”

“Yes, your bonding day is a very serious event,” his adoptive father agreed without a blink, and then skipped away to mingle with the crowds before Harry could catch him. He cursed softly.

“Pre-bonding nerves?” Draco asked softly, curling an arm around his waist. Harry hadn’t even seen where he came from.

“No, just hoping that no one disrupts it,” Harry said, and leaned back on his promised bondmate for a minute before he pulled away and stood upright with a smile. “And it’s in only a few minutes, so at least they have a limited amount of time.”

“That they do.” Draco extended his arm, and waited patiently until Harry laid his fingers on top of the crook of his elbow in exactly the prescribed position. “You can already hear the music starting.”

Harry listened, then snorted. It wasn’t like he’d cared greatly about the music, but he still thought Narcissa’s chosen arrangement of harps and flutes and bells was absurdly delicate for what was going to happen. “Does this get played every time a Malfoy bonds?” he asked, as Draco gently maneuvered him towards the outer edge of the bonding grove. They had to walk over to it together, even though they’d enter separately. Harry hadn’t even tried to understand the explanation behind that one.

“Yes,” Draco said, and smiled down at him. “God, you look gorgeous.”

“So do you.” Harry wouldn’t have wanted to wear Draco’s bonding robes, which had exactly the kind of high collar and lace cuffs that he thought would itch, but he could admit that he liked the way the cloth flowed around Draco’s legs and accented the width of his shoulders and the roll of his muscles. “I like the look of you better with them off, though.”

Draco’s eyes widened, and then he said, “Harry, _please_. Waiting is going to be painful enough without a hard-on.”

“Should have chosen less itchy robes,” Harry retorted, and reveled in the sound of Draco’s laughter.

He was about to bond with someone who loved him and could take a joke and looked handsome as fuck even in formal bonding robes. Harry honestly didn’t see how his life could get much better.

*

Draco did have to perform a quick spell that would subdue an erection before he split from Harry to enter the grove on the far side, near the fallen tree trunk that would serve as altar. Harry’s remark had something to do with it, but so did the mere sight of him walking in those blue bonding robes, the cloak with the Black crest glittering across his shoulders, his smile faint but _very_ present as he tilted his head back to look at Draco one more time.

The last thing Draco saw before he disappeared into the cool green avenue of the arched tree branches was the bonding bracelet glittering on Harry’s wrist. He smiled. This was the last day that Harry would wear it.

Or that was, the last day he would wear it _alone_.

Pacing through the trees, Draco heard the music drop away. Spells cast on the grove kept this part of it still. Tradition dictated that Draco would walk in in silence and remain there until he saw Harry coming in. Then the music that was traditional for a Black heir getting bonded to someone else would play.

Draco was sure that Harry didn’t remember what music that was, or possibly hadn’t ever asked.

It didn’t matter.

The people standing among the aisles of trees, in the immense clearing that surrounded the fallen trunk, looked back at Draco. Most of them were his parents’ friends and associates, with some important Ministry people and members of the Wizengamot. Blaise and Pansy stood in the front row; both smiled when Draco caught their eye. There were also a few other Slytherins—Gregory, Vincent, Theo, Daphne—who Draco had been friendly with, although not as close as he was to Blaise and Pansy.

Harry’s siblings were near the back, with Black and the werewolf who had written those articles about the Potters. Standing with them were two women and a man Draco had to blink at before he recognized them. His aunt Andromeda, uncle-by-marriage Ted Tonks, and cousin Nymphadora.

He wondered for a moment if Mother had known they were coming, or if they were there on Black’s invitation.

But that didn’t matter, either.

What mattered was Harry advancing up the second aisle between the trees, the one at right angles to the one Draco had walked, and people falling silent at the sight of him.

His robes glinted in the sunlight. Around his neck, the golden torque that Black had given him because it was apparently tradition for Black heirs to be bonded in it almost glowed. Harry’s bonding bracelet gave back sparks as the light caught it, too.

And around his other arm, wound back and forth and creating an obvious lump under his robe, was M.H. Draco stared. More than one person followed his stare and swayed gently out of the path of Harry’s steps.

 _Where did he come from? Did Harry let him crawl around the gardens eating mice until it was time for the ceremony?_ Draco did have to admit the house-elves would welcome the help in getting mice out of the way and away from the banquet his parents had planned.

_As long as he doesn’t eat a house-elf._

Harry stopped in front of Draco, facing the tree trunk that would serve as altar, while Draco stood in profile to it. Around them echoed the music of banging drums and high, distant horns. Draco approved. It was the traditional music, but it fit Harry’s personality and his hunt for his heritage, too.

Harry reached out a hand—his right hand, the one with the bonding bracelet on his wrist, as he’d been instructed. The music stopped, and Draco turned to face him, leaving his back to the altar. Standing off to the side, his mother would be waving her wand, and he knew the right flowers and leaves would be settling there.

Draco carried the second bonding bracelet in a pocket. He didn’t take it out right away. He looked into Harry’s eyes and drank in the moment, down to the creases at the corners of Harry’s smile and the soft flicker of M.H.’s tongue as he stuck it out to smell the air.

“Are you ready?” Draco whispered.

Harry nodded, and pulled out the bracelet that he would give to Draco.

“You were born Harry Potter,” Draco began, the words soft and sonorous. He knew his mother had threatened to cast a spell that would make his voice more musical. It sounded like she’d probably gone ahead and done it. “You stand before me Harry Black. Are you ready to take another name, and be bound and move forwards as Harry Malfoy?”

Harry beamed at him. “I am,” he said, and held out his hand again. This time, Draco held up the bracelet and turned it around so everyone could see it. It was made of glimmering opal, with a chunk of glittering emerald at the center in the shape of the Malfoy crest.

He ignored the sound of an elephant’s trumpet coming from the back rows. Let Harry’s siblings have their fun.

 _He_ had Harry. He knew who was getting the superior bargain.

*

Harry watched in awed silence as Draco slid the bracelet around Harry’s wrist. At once it slid up his arm, propelled by its own magic, which felt like a warm ripple of Draco’s or what Harry experienced every time he crossed the wards of the Manor, and settled into place next to the bracelet Harry already wore.

Harry looked up at Draco, and for an instant, he couldn’t remember the traditional words. All his world was filled with Draco’s smile.

Then they came back to him, and he displayed the bonding bracelet he held by turning in a slow circle. It was identical to the new one he wore, except the Malfoy crest on this one was made of a single huge diamond.

“You were born Draco Malfoy,” he told Draco. “You will wear that name, in common with me, until the day you die.” Draco lifted his head as if he was listening to the magical horns that had blown when Harry was walking through the grove. “Are you accepting of your fate, to wear it in common with me, to be secure in our bonding, and bound to me?”

“I am,” Draco breathed, so softly that Harry didn’t know if even Narcissa, standing off to the side on Draco’s right, could hear him.

But they couldn’t mistake the way he thrust his hand forwards, or how Harry slid the bracelet on. This one also snuggled and settled against his bonding bracelet, the way the one Harry wore had.

Draco leaned forwards and kissed him.

That caught Harry utterly by surprise, because it wasn’t the right place in the ceremony. He blinked several times, and Draco chuckled and pulled back, saying in a soft voice, “I couldn’t wait. I’m sure they’ll forgive us.”

Harry, catching a glimpse of Narcissa’s frozen face from the corner of his eye, _wasn’t_ sure of that.

But Draco didn’t pay any attention to her, instead turning Harry around by his hands and seating him among the drifts of white flowers and green leaves on the altar. Harry took a deep breath and looked up at Draco. Lucius was standing behind him, further back, and Narcissa had moved slightly to the side so that she could see the moment when Draco would cover the Black crest on Harry’s back with the Malfoy one. The others would only see it when Draco stood Harry up and turned him around to face the crowd.

“Nervous?” Draco asked him.

“Only sad that the bonding ceremony says blood parents are the only ones who can be up here,” Harry said quietly.

Draco’s face softened for a moment, but he said, “You have your siblings, and Black, and my parents. And me.” His smile was sharp this time as he pulled the Malfoy cloak, a small square of folded cloth, from inside his robe. “Always me.”

Harry didn’t even try to answer that, because any words he would have tried would be utterly inadequate. He did give a soft gasp as he watched the white cloth of the Malfoy cloak unfold. It shimmered as if it was made of snow woven with sun.

“It’s beautiful,” Draco said, bending over him. The words that flowed from him them were nothing ceremonial, but that didn’t matter to Harry. They were as beautiful as the cloak. “Like your magic. Like the children we’ll create by combining our power. Like you. God, Harry…”

For an instant, his hand lingered on Harry’s chest. Then, maybe because he’d caught his mother’s eye, he raised the cloak and settled it delicately over the Black mantle on Harry’s back, overlapping it partially. He lightly pulled both hoods up around Harry’s head, and bent down to give him another kiss on the lips. This one was chaste in accordance with tradition.

“You’re so magnificent,” he murmured, and then he helped Harry stand up and turned him around so that everyone in the audience could see his back.

Harry could feel himself flushing and ducking his head without even meaning to. The cheers and applause were louder than the music had been, louder than his heartbeat in his bones, and they seemed sincere.

Draco pulled Harry towards him and kissed him again. Harry raised his hand and latched it deeply into Draco’s hair, keeping him in place as he pressed his lips hard enough into Draco’s to make his lips bleed.

 _Why do you do that all the time?_ M.H. asked, and reared up from on Harry’s arm so that he could wave his head back and forth in the air. There was more than one gasp from the audience, who must not all have seen him before. _If you were passing a mouse back and forth between your mouths, it must be dead by now._

“ _Not everything is about food,_ ” Harry answered, using his Parseltongue openly, which made some people sway and others clap harder and a few people look wistful. Harry chose to pretend that they were upset they hadn’t married a Parselmouth into their families, even though that probably wasn’t true.

_Feed me a pig._

“ _Later, M.H._ ” Harry told him, and held out his hand to Draco so that he could lead him down the aisle Harry had walked up, together now. He could see Lilac waving frantically, with the leash adjusted so that Eric could sit on her shoulders. Remus was applauding, grinning. Sirius…

“Shit!” Harry muttered, and Draco just had the time to turn his head and look at Harry before Sirius’s firework went off.

It swept through the grove, whistling so loudly that most of the guests ducked and put their hands over their ears. Harry might have done the same, but Draco was rather insistent on claiming his hand. As it was, they were among the first to see the gold and red stars of magic drifting down along the colored comet’s path of the fire.

Everything the red and gold stars touched changed. The trees became enormous signs, waving back and forth in the wind, that all said CONGRATULATIONS! in letters so scarlet they looked bloody. The grass changed into tiny illusory fairies that jumped up and down and waved their arms in unison, like Lilac’s. The white flowers on the altar exploded into more fireworks that zoomed and whistled and shrieked, and the guests immediately acquired glamours of roaring lion heads.

Harry could hear Sirius’s laughter, loud and boisterous and unashamed, from the back of the audience. It stayed in the same place until Narcissa started moving towards it, and then abruptly cut off.

“What—the hell—” Harry, blinking as tiny fireworks wove a pattern of words in the air in front of him. _Have a great bonding night!_

“He’s in partnership with the Weasley twins,” Draco was muttering. “I’d forgotten.”

“The who?”

“Twins from a family who’s traditionally in Gryffindor,” Draco said grimly. His eyes were scanning the crowd, probably looking for Sirius himself. “They run a prank shop in Diagon Alley.” He rolled his eyes. “He was one of their first business partners. I wouldn’t be surprised if they designed that firework specifically for him.”

“Probably.” Harry honestly couldn’t bring himself to care. Sirius had made their bonding the perfect mix of him and Draco, he thought: traditional and untraditional, deep love and the joy Harry had at coming back to the wizarding world and finding someone who loved him.

He glanced around. Narcissa and Lucius were both grimly searching the crowd. Most of the guests were trying to cast spells to get rid of their lion heads or talk to each other, but since the glamours kept turning their words into roars, they weren’t having a lot of success.

“Race you to the sweets?” he asked Draco.

Draco gave him a startled look. “We’re supposed to eat last,” he muttered.

“And right now, no one’s going to care about that,” Harry said, and seized Draco’s hand. “Let’s go. We’ll take the edge off our hunger, and then we can go back to being traditional by the time your mother’s sorted all this out.”

Draco hesitated just one moment, and then his smile flashed out. “You have the _best_ ideas,” he said, and kissed Harry before they started running across the gardens towards the tables that held the feast.

Running like this, Harry thought—hand-in-hand with his bonded—was almost better than flying.

*

Draco’s thoughts wheeled around him like fireworks of his own as he watched Harry dash out from the grove, pausing only briefly to ruffle Eric’s hair and hug Lilac with one arm. They had lion heads like everyone else, but they seemed to be enjoying it.

_I have him._

_I love him_.

 _He’s mine_.

And, as Harry, _finally_ his consort, turned back to flash a smile at him, his face lit up from the side by the chaos of Black’s prank:

_I couldn’t have chosen better._

**The End.**


End file.
